Giving

Although I brought items with me to donate, there is not really a mechanism here for distributing them.  We were told that shortly before we arrived, someone attempted to hand out hand sanitizer in the hospital, and there was such a run on it that they had to call security.  Evidently, handing out dozens of toothbrushes in the wards is not going to work.

The PT patients staying here live in a humble house just outside the hospital campus.  It has water and power, and small rooms with separate entrances from wide outside porches, but is very sparse otherwise. I visited to take them the 6 sets of sheets I had brought from home, because there 6 were people staying there at the time.

Ulna, the wife of one of the patients, had asked me if I could “help her with her children.”  She has two daughters, 12 and 14, and speaks some French. I thought I’d take the comb and colorful hair elastics that I had brought as well as the sheets, so I told her I had something “tout petit” – really small – for her.

When I arrived with my suitcase with sheets she was thrilled, thinking that everything in the bag was for her, so she immediately took me into her room.  There was nothing but a cot and a mattress on the floor.  But I told her the things were for everyone, so she reluctantly took me back out onto the porch.

The other residents were happy to receive sets of clean white sheets and new toothbrushes, but when I gave Ulna her sheets along with the hair things, and her husband Oscar the playground ball he had said he wanted (and will probably sell), Ulna seemed unimpressed.  I felt terrible, as if I had raised her expectations, and then disappointed her.

It’s hard to know how to help.  HAS reminds us that our gift to the Haitian people is our being here, but it is up to us to decide if we want to do more.  If I give Ulna $10 or $20 before I leave, is that a good thing?  Is it enough to make a difference?  And what about the other patients who have just as much need?  They all know that we are so wealthy that it must seem stingy that we don’t give more.  Yet Haiti is so dependent on handouts that one wonders how helpful it really is.  After I left the patients’ residence, I realized that I had several hundred dollars in contingency cash hidden in the very suitcase I’d taken to their house, and felt even worse.

Rose, a nurse working in the cholera ward with her physician husband Bob, told me about one of her patients, a little boy who had been brought in by his grandmother.  He was feeling better, but the two of them hadn’t had anything to eat for 2 days.  The boys’ mother was away in St. Marc and didn’t even know he was sick, and the grandmother had no money for food.  Workers are discouraged from taking food to patients because there is no equitable way of distribution in this setting, and there would never be enough.  But Rose couldn’t stand by and let these two, the young and the old, continue to be hungry.  She took leftover food, snuck them into a dark room, and fed them, saying, “don’t tell anyone about this.”  They were extremely grateful.

The gate to our compound is guarded all the time, mainly, I understand, for the privacy of the residents and to keep locals from approaching and asking for handouts.  One guard, named Berthoud, is there most afternoons and evenings and I’ve become a little familiar with her.  One day her young son Michi was with her, doing his schoolwork.  He proudly showed me his book on hygiene, opened to a page with line drawings of teeth and how to brush.  The next night when she was there, I gave her two new toothbrushes for Michi and his brother, one decorated with dinosaurs and the other with stars and moons.  A few nights later, Michi was with her again, and he approached me with a huge smile, thanking me for the toothbrush.  He was so sweet.  This night, he showed me his book on the history of his country, and I told him that I was studying the history of Haiti, too.  I’ve learned that small gifts are more appreciated when they are not expected.

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At the end of our workday on Friday, a young man approached me in the clinic and started telling me, in English, about his art program for children.  He had small papers to hand out showing his web site and email addresses, and invited me to come see his program the next morning.  I asked him where it was, and he said he’d come get me at my house in the morning and walk me there, but I didn’t want to do that.  It was close by, so I said, “why don’t you show me now?”

So off I went, with this young Haitian man named Oliancy, through a grassy field dotted with trash and goats, past tiny painted cinder block hovels, and on to the continuation of the Corridor that runs by the HAS campus.  We passed lots of curious children, some of whom wanted me to take their picture, which I happily obliged, while Oliancy continued to tell me in heavily accented English about all of his efforts.

We turned into an enclosure with a large yellow building that appeared closed, then passed between that and another small white building with blue trim, where students were packed inside a tiny, dark room finishing their days’ lessons.  Oliancy told me that these were secondary school students.

Beyond that building was a cinder-block structure with 4 rooms and no light, with wooden benches, chairs, and desks that you would imagine seeing in a Colonial era American schoolroom.  This is where he held his “club,” from 8:30 to 10:30 on Saturday mornings. I told him I would come back at 9 the next morning.

That evening, Ian Rawson was visiting Alumni House, where we take our meals, so I asked him if this guy was for real.  Ian replied, “they all are,” but I’m not sure what he meant, because he went on to tell us that Haitians are very creative and sophisticated in their methods of extracting money from sympathetic foreigners.  I then asked if he thought it was safe for me to return the next morning, and he said, “Oh, yes, it’s very safe, because they all know that there are so many people looking out for you.”

So the next day I walked up the Corridor, probably only 100 yards, but it had seemed further when I went the other way with Oliancy.  I saw a little girl in a red shirt go into the little building and followed her in.  Darned if there wasn’t Oliancy with about 30 children packed into a little classroom, teaching them a song, the words to which one of them was diligently writing on the chalkboard.  They all snapped to their feet and greeted me when he introduced me, saying brightly in unison, “Bonjou, Madam!”  Then they sang me their song.  In the adjacent room, 4 other children were working on drawings, with an older boy at the chalkboard drawing the design they were to copy.

Oliancy showed me some of his supplies:  paper, scissors, crayons, colored pencils, glue, and twine.  They also use coconut shells and paint for various art projects and jewelry.  I gave him one of my playground balls and $20, and he said he would use the donation for more supplies.  He also promised to bring me some art created by the children before I leave.  As far as I can tell, this 24-year-old man is doing what he says he is doing, and I was very impressed.