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
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| 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.
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| 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.
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.
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