**This is going to be a pretty long post and I don't have any pictures to break it up - just to warn you.
The next few weeks (which puts us into February) passed with much excitement, both good and bad. We had routine days going to school, working on art and environmental lessons, working with the women in the loan program, and organizing everything on our end for two groups of high school girls to come on week-long immersion trips. In the midst of all of this, we had three tragedies within two and a half weeks. To put these on top of all of the work that we were doing on our projects and these school groups, Beth and I, (Frankie went home to be there when her sister gave birth to her new nephew), had a hard time, physically, mentally and emotionally.
When we first arrived, a little girl came to our house with her mother looking for medical assistance. She had gone to Fon Ibo and Camp Claudine in the summer, so the sisters and Beth knew her. She had a huge growth on her elbow - the size of a small basket ball. The sisters pulled some strings and paid for her to get into the best children's hospital in PAP. It was decided that the only thing that they could do for her was to amputate. They weren't sure if it was cancerous, but they knew that her arm had to come off if she was going to live. It's important to understand that despite the fact that this girl could live a normal and productive life with only one arm, amputees are less accepted here and regarded as "sick." The father, who was living abroad, was consulted by telephone about the prognosis and told the mother, knowing full well that his daughter was going to die without the surgery, to not do it because there were risks with the surgery and they could always have another child. I just want to say that this may not be the full story - it is what we heard from someone and we have no way of really knowing whether or not this was the reasoning behind the final decision. While I'm not excusing the reasoning of the father, and the mother's submission to the man's decision (this follows along cultural lines), I just want to acknowledge the fact that we may have a very skewed perspective of what happened.
Anyway, the girl came back from the hospital and then the waiting game started. In February, Beth and I decided that we should stop by and see the little girl because she wasn't going to school or really doing much of anything. One day we told her uncle we were going to come, something came up and we didn't go. A few days later, when we decided that we were actually going to go, Beth saw the uncle and asked if it was alright and he replied that she had died that morning. When I met up with Beth later in the morning and she told me that, my jaw literally dropped. I couldn't believe it. What strange forces were working that on the very day we were going to see her, she died? It's hard to say exactly what I felt when I first found out. Shock, definitely. Sadness, of course, because this was a life that didn't need to end so soon. Anger, yes - at the father for his decision not to take action and at the mother to not stand up for her daughter's life. Despite all the reading I've done about Haiti, the questions I've asked, the people I've met and the things I've seen, there are still some things that I don't understand. This is one of them. Why didn't anyone fight for this girl's life? Is the death of a child so common here, that a life is considered almost replaceable?
Because Beth had worked with the little girl in camp and Sr. Pat had paid for their trip to the hospital, we decided that we should attend the funeral. I had heard a little bit about Haitian funerals, from the sisters and knew that I needed to prepare for an intense experience. The service itself was similar to other services I've been to. The casket was open in the front and the preacher spoke for a while about the girl and various other subjects. I don't remember the specifics of what he said, but at one point, I remember thinking that the fact that the preacher was literally shouting down at the family and friends did not seem like an appropriate tone given the circumstances. In fact, I remember thinking that after the first 20 minutes of being yelled at, if it continued any longer, I would politely excuse myself because it just seemed disrespectful. But that's just my opinion - I have no idea if that style of talking is accepted at funerals here.
I had heard that at funerals here, women will wail. Let me tell you, that is a sound like no other. Overcome with grief, women will wail. It can't be likened to crying or screaming. It's more like a long, high pitched noise that reverberates in you like no other sound I've ever experienced. Words can not explain it, but upon hearing it, my mind jumped to the Siren calls told of in Greek mythology. It had an eerie quality that just rips into you. It was amazing, and a little scary, to see how open these women were in expressing their sorrow. One woman passed out and had to be carried out of the church. As one who avoids crying or talking about my feelings, it was pretty incredible to see how much these women were feeling.
When the service ended, everyone gathered outside the church where the marching band (a typical component of Haitian funerals) and the hearse were waiting to begin the march to the cemetery. Beth and I tried to stay out of the way and towards the back, but it turned out that the path the coffin had chosen to take was right in front of us. So, there it went - a beautiful white lacquered coffin, about 4 ft long, carried literally under my nose. I remember my breath catching in my chest and thinking about how small it looked and the little girl laying inside. I knew, that as the fanfare started and the little girl was put into the car, the sounds of the wails would haunt me for a long time.
A few days later, Beth and I went to the Village to play with the kids. While we were there, a woman approached me and said that a young man was very sick and needed medicine. I told her that we only had medicine for minor injuries and ailments. If he was that bad, he needed to go to the hospital. But, she insisted on showing me the man. She brought me (and a whole troop of little followers) into a small, dimly lit room that had nothing in it except a bed on one side and a young man laying on a few blankets in a corner. I could see right off the bat that he was incredibly thin and that one of his eyes was a bright, opaque blue. Beth joined me and we tried to figure out more information about this man's symptoms. None of our questions were answered beyond the fact that he was sick, he couldn't eat, he was thirsty and there was no money to send him to the hospital. They did show us his legs and feet, however, which were pretty swollen. We did our best to explain that he really needed to go to the hospital but that if his sister came to our house Tuesday or Wednesday (we were closed to visitors Monday because of the parish feast celebration), they may be able to give a little support. We advised trying to have him eat a little rice or bread and we emptied our water bottles so he would have at least some clean water. We also asked why he was on the floor and not in the bed and tried to get two young men to lift him into the bed, but no one wanted to touch him. After that, we went home, told Sr. Pat what we had done and that his sister was coming. We then went about our business. Wednesday morning rolled around, the sister arrived bright and early and Sr. Pat gave her a slip for the hospital that said we would cover the costs for tests and being seen by the doctor. She came back in the afternoon and said that the young man had died that morning, before he ever made it to the hospital. We still have no idea what killed him and to be completely honest, I was a little nervous to go back to the Village for a while because we weren't sure if we were going to be blamed for his death (something that does happen relatively frequently here).
It's said that bad things come in threes and we didn't have to wait long until the third one presented itself. We had two groups of high school girls come for week-long service immersion trips and Beth and I (and Frankie when she came back from the States) worked pretty closely with them making sure things were set up before the trip and then showing them around while they were here. We were at the hospital trying to coordinate an information session with the nurses working in the malnutrition clinic. One of the head doctors/administrators generously helped us set up the session and then gave us a brief tour of the hospital. Maybe two days later, we heard that he and another doctor had been in PAP and had been shot at and the other doctor had actually been killed. Apparently, there was an armed robbery nearby and the doctor was answering his phone but the robber thought he was trying to call the police - so he shot him. Our series of unfortunate events ended up in four, not three, because a few days after that, the little boy Beth is really close with told us that his baby step-sister who was only a few months old had died. We had met the baby as a newborn and we both got to hold and cuddle her. She had a cough for a while and I believe had gone to the hospital, but she ended up dying.
Needless to say, it was a pretty difficult few weeks. It was hard for me to know what to do, think, feel or react to these situations. I'm not sure if I learned any huge life lessons or morals from them, but it did show me a new aspect of life here. It gave me a better idea of how hard life is, the consequences poverty as well as cultural norms can have, how many parents bury a child and how Death's presence seems nearer in a place like Haiti.
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