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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