No Ordinary Life

Nurse Kerry jumped on a plan with only hours notice to return to Haiti

Received a distressing message today from a relief team nurse who just flew back to Haiti to help at the orphanage clinic we set up after the earthquake. Aftershocks had forced them to evacuate.

"All the children woke up, fear was within each of them," Kerry said. They'd been outside all night, most of the children too hurt to go anywhere else.

Each time the ground shakes in Haiti, it shakes in my heart.  Images run through my mind. A starving baby asleep in my arms. Sick orphans huddled on the wet ground.

I keep having a dream that I'm trying to drive my car to Haiti but a tidal wave blocks my way.

Some of my teammates returned to Haiti with only hours notice to help expand the clinic at New Life Children's Home thanks to the donation of a large UNICEF tent.  We call the clinic "Wimmer's Wing" after EMT Sarah Wimmer who stayed behind to help run it.

I expected those middle-of-the-night phone calls as a TV news crime reporter. The overnight producer would give me just enough details to throw on clothes and get out the door. Shooting. Northeast. Multiple fatalities.  

Even after leaving the crime beat, I still carry a backpack of clothes in my trunk...

As I look at how the story of my life has unfolded - from the viewer who sent a Kleenex with the snarky advice, "Honey, blot your lips," to Hollywood to Haiti - I've come to see that I'm not meant to live an ordinary life...even if that means crossing the ocean on a moment's notice simply to go hold a child's hand.

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Haiti: Chapter Two Begins

Haitian kids peer at us from an old truck (Photo: Dane Melberg)

Got a call today from the relief team leader I covered in Haiti to see if I can go back next week! The last trip came together in days so we'll see.

Transformational Development Agency is expanding the clinic at New Life Children's Home thanks to a large UNICEF tent.  There is an urgent need for medical staff, especially physical therapists and pediatric specialists. Sarah, our teammate who stayed in Haiti, says they need prosthetics for kids who lost limbs in the earthquake but have no idea how they'll get them.

While the needs are endless in Haiti, I can help by keeping the story in the public eye. But the longer it takes to return, the more every day life intrudes: the agent calls for an audition. the landlord wants a decision about renewing my lease. the car needs some maintenance...

I struggle with a conflicting sense of calling to both Hollywood and Haiti. Perhaps my destiny is in Haiti's ruins. But as one of our paramedics said to me, "The 'high' we experienced there may never happen again."

He's right. We experienced a rare time of working at our peak ability; of loving unreservedly; of total unity of vision.

"Why go back?" my sister asked. Why put myself in danger again?  For the same reason as before: it seems like a moment in history in which I've been invited to play a role.

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Haiti: Part 5 - Beauty for Ashes

medical team planning for the day


I've posted a few stories about covering the earthquake in Haiti.  To read part 4, click here.

Our Haiti relief team is having a reunion tonight! This was one of the best groups of people I've ever met. Most of us plan to go back to Haiti at some point. Even though I still don't see how it all fits together - the journey from Hollywood to Haiti - it was where I belonged.

Haiti - part 5

We're leaving Haiti today. We have to return to the U.S. a few days earlier than we'd planned. The re-opening of the main airport in Port-au-Prince will mean tighter restrictions. 

Even though we came into the country legally, our leaders are worried Haitian authorities might give us trouble trying to get a large team of nearly 40 doctors, nurses, paramedics and journalists back out.

I'm torn between wanting to stay and wanting to go home. Someone asks if I've said goodbye to baby Kevin - I can't hold him one more time and just walk away.

Our gear's loaded in the tap-tap by 7:30 am. I hug the staff at New Life Children's Home and say goodbye to a teammate who has chosen to stay behind a few weeks to help run the clinic. I met Sarah through a Facebook friend and two weeks later we were on a plane to Haiti. She's a hero to us - a lifesaver to the injured children with nowhere to go.

Dr. Jolie & Sarah Wimmer (rt) (Scott Mortensen photo)

We give Sarah one more hug, jump in the tap-tap, and drive through the orphanage's teal gates one last time. We truly experienced beauty in the ashes.

Back in the US
A teammate hospitalized with life-threatening dengue fever wrote:

In the worst moments, I would close my eyes and see the faces of the sweet souls we met in Haiti and wonder who was caring for them. I'd find myself falling asleep praying for the lives in the countless images that play across the slide show in my mind and heart. That in itself is the silver lining to this. ~Bree

"Don't forget me."  Scott Mortensen photo

A photographer who took these pictures urged us to make sure the people we met are not forgotten. I will do my part until I return, Haiti.  Map vini an Ayiti anko.

To read about my return to Haiti two years after the earthquake, click here.

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Haiti: Part 4 - Miracles

"If God had a face, what would it look like?" Joan Osborne

Haiti - Part 4

Today we're heading to downtown Port-au-Prince to tour the ruins of the January 12th earthquake.  This is our first trip to the wrecked Presidential palace.

The weather's been mercifully fair and cloudy all week - low 80s, some drizzle - so we can ride in the back of the tap-tap (flatbed truck taxi) without scorching in the sun. Mercifully as well, aftershocks have been mild.

The city is destroyed as far as they eye can see. Rich and poor, famous and unknown, white and black - every neighborhood equally devastated.

We nicknamed our tap-tap (truck taxi) "big blue."

Driving in Haiti is nuts!  Carts and people often block the roads, there are very few traffic lights at intersections and drivers use whichever side of the road is open.

Our tap-tap (truck taxi) gets blocked by a dump truck stuck on the narrow dirt road.  We climb out of the tap tap to see if we can find anyone who needs help since we won't be going anywhere for a while.

We're sorry

A young man calls to us in Creole. "He wants help recovering the bodies of three family members so he can give them a proper burial," our interpreter tell us. "They died when their house fell on them in the earthquake."

What can we do? We don't have the heavy equipment needed to move the tons of stone that became their grave.

Dane Melberg photo

For a moment, I wonder why God sent us here if He wasn't going to do miracles like He did when He parted the Red Sea. Why is God so seemingly blind to a nation's despair? I long to see God do something Hollywood filmmakers couldn't copy if they tried a hundred years.

Our driver inches forward as traffic starts moving. "We're sorry," our translator tells the man as we jump back in the tap-tap, "We can't help you."

If a miracle happened that day, I didn't see it.

A mother's touch
Back at base camp, I'm overcome by a sense of futility. What difference can we make in the face of such tragedy?

It may not seem like much, but there is one thing...I walk to the orphanage and cradle a starving infant - abandoned without ever knowing a mother's touch.

baby Kevin holding my thumb

Back in the US
It hits me that I did see miracles in Haiti. 

I saw the miracle of faith as doctors, nurses and others said, "I'll go."

I saw the miracle of hope as they set broken bones and comforted broken hearts.

I saw the miracle of love as they held strangers and gave water to thirsty children...miracles you see not with your eyes, but with your heart.

To read part 5, click here.

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Haiti: Part 3 - A Survivor's Story

"I don't feel like a hero but lucky to have the faith and ability to help." ~Dr. Jolie (Photo: Scott Mortensen)

Haiti - part 3

"I just felt like I needed to get up early and walk around the orphanage and pray," Patty tells me about the day of the earthquake, "I don't know why."

Patty works at New Life Children's Home where we've set up our base camp. One of few American-made structures in Haiti, the compound appears almost untouched by the massive quake that killed more than 200,000 people.

I'm staying at camp to write an article for a London magazine while the medical team sets up a clinic in a remote area of town. Patty's offered to let me shower in her apartment. There's no hot water but I'm grateful for the shower after days of only having sponge baths from a bucket.

our tent camp with New Life's main building in the background.

A survivor's story
After I've showered, I ask Patty to tell me more about the earthquake.

"It didn't start out like a normal day," she says. "The guard came running in saying someone left a baby in the road." 

The staff had been able to track down the baby's mother from a note attached to the child's clothes.  The 17-year-old said she couldn't afford to feed the child. She agreed to bring Natalia's birth certificate to the orphanage later that day.

"Then the earthquake happened," Patty recalls.

"I was getting thrown everywhere. The sound was deafening. I tried to run outside. The ground was heaving."  At first, Patty didn't know that beyond the gates Port-au-Prince was in ruins. "Then I looked to the hills and there was nothing but a cloud of dust rising up. I knew it was bad. Oh my God," I said, "Oh my God."

Natalia's mother never returned that day. No one knows if she's alive or dead.

Meeting Natalia
Patty asks if I want to meet Natalia. As we walk past orphans, many with physical handicaps, tears fill my eyes. Natalia's playing on a slide. She's plump and healthy, unlike the emaciated babies I've seen so far.

I try to get Natalia to smile but she doesn't like the playtime interruption. I hold her, thinking, "Natalia, I'm sorry you were left in the road. I'm sorry you'll probably never know what happened to your mommy."

...Later it occurs to me that being abandoned on a dirt road may have saved Natalia's life.

As the sun sets and the team returns, I go sit with them under the mango tree. I feel their  strength and love, and hope rises for Haiti's future - for Natalia.

To read part 4, click here.

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Haiti: Part 2 - Peace in His Soul

"Finally arrived to what I thought was home...only to realize a far off place that has faced total devastation is much more home." ~Kerry Lewis, nurse


I'll be posting a few stories about covering the earthquake in Haiti.  To read part 1, click here.

I've never fallen in love with so many people in such a short time. Even though most of the relief team members were strangers to me when we boarded the plane to Haiti, we were forever knit together by the end of our trip.

Many of us stayed up until dawn our last night together - talking, laughing, some drinking smuggled Haitian rum.  We couldn't say goodbye.  "I feel like I'm breaking up with a boyfriend I still love," said Jolie. We loved hard and we loved well in Haiti...


Haiti - Part 2

driving through flattened neighborhoods.  Brian Field photo

Today we drive through slums that are almost completely flattened by the earthquake on our way to find patients. The dirt roads are so narrow that our tap-tap (flatbed truck taxi) barely fits through the streets.

We jump off the truck in an alley as we arrive at a windowless garage that's being used as medical clinic. Injured survivors are lined up outside and a crowd quickly gathers. "Food! Water!" they shout to us in Creole. We carry only medical supplies. We're afraid the crowd might riot.

Instead of rioting though, children tug our hands inviting us to play with them. sick people ask for prayer. young men check out the women on our team.

Bree is passing out stickers to kids who shriek with delight as if they'd been given Playstations.  Boys shout as Brian tosses them in the air.  Women bring babies to sit on my lap. It feels like a neighborhood picnic - except we have no food.

Dr. Ian Armstrong with the children (Dave de Vos photo)

An interpreter who traveled with us from the U.S. hasn't seen his family since a year before the earthquake. He's able to get word to his sisters in a nearby village. Somehow they find us and a joyful reunion takes place in the midst of the crowd.

Duty interrupts play
Our doctors have found a badly injured man who has received virtually no treatment since a building collapsed on him. We'll use our tap-tap as an ambulance to get him to the main tent hospital where the most severely injured victims are being treated.

The men take the bench from the back of the truck to use as a stretcher.  Doctors strap the man to the board keep his body in place on the bumpy drive - he has a serious head injury and his leg is broken in two places. He winces as the men lift him into the truck but doesn't complain.

"My daughter," is all he whispers. His daughter climbs in the truck to be with him. I'm sitting next to him and want to stay but I'm asked to ride up front; the heavier men will ride in back to weigh down the truck and try to make the ride less bumpy.

Later back at base camp, I think of the injured father...the dignity in his face. Even in the midst of his pain and sorrow, he held on to the peace in his soul.

To read part 3, click here.

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Haiti: Part 1

"Haiti...felt like the land in which I had always belonged..." ~Shay



 A nurse from our Haiti relief team sent a message today asking, "Shay, do we still need to check your bags?"  She was teasing me about an email from our leader saying he thought I might have an orphaned baby hidden in my bag when we left Haiti.

"Today I was thinking of two-week-old Kevin," I replied. "I wonder if he's sad? is someone holding him? is he sleeping? is he smiling?" I know it was the right thing to do to leave Kevin at the orphanage but it's hard to leave a newborn who falls asleep holding my hand.

Haiti - Part 1

our team arriving in Haiti

We can see bed sheets blanketing the landscape as we fly into Port-au-Prince. From the air, the colorful fabrics look like laundry hung out to dry. From the ground, we see the sheets are actually makeshift tents.

We throw our gear into a flatbed pickup truck (a tap-tap taxi) and climb in the back.  I feel fear rising as we pull out of the airport and head to an orphanage where we're setting up base camp - the airport guards seemed to be our only protection from mobs of homeless Haitians jamming the roadway. Some media reports had warned about machete-wielding gangs looting and terrorizing survivors in the earthquake aftermath.

Men try to sell us trinkets and boys ask for money as we slowly drive past...women hold out their hands for food. I realize the people don't want to hurt us - they just want our help. From then on Haiti does not feel like a foreign land...somehow it begins to feel like the land in which I had always belonged.

The roads to New Life Children's Home are surprisingly clear of rubble. The staff has agreed to let us camp on the orphanage soccer field. An armed guard slides aside a heavy, metal gate to let our tap-tap enter.

Our team leader, Rikki, gives us a brief safety orientation. "Please do not walk around the compound perimeter at night," he warns. "The guards will not know it's you and we want to take everyone home who came with us."

The smallest victims

We're getting settled in our tents when we hear someone yell, "We need a nurse!" We have two nurses in our four-person tent. I follow the nurses to what I thought was a crumbling storehouse.

The scene looks like something out of a holocaust movie: concrete floor. bare light bulbs. urine stench. gaunt children in blood-soaked bandages lying on cots...

New Life makeshift clinic.  Lori Bailey photo

It's actually a makeshift hospital for the earthquake's youngest victims - brought here because there was nowhere else to take them.

A baby burned on the top half of her body when a pot of boiling water spilled in the earthquake needs her bandages changed. A nurse snaps on rubber gloves. I watch for a second and then do the same - there's no one else to help.

  

In that moment, I'm no longer just a journalist. "Scissors. bandages," the nurse gives instructions and I run back and forth grabbing supplies off rickety wooden benches being used as shelves.

The nurse quickly attends to patient after patient. I follow - sometimes just giving a sip of water to a boy with a broken leg; other times creating crude patient charts out of notebook paper.  Frequently I'm trying to hide my tears. Haiti has already begun to steal my heart.

To read part 2, click here.

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