From Jimani

I have thought for awhile now about what I would write about my time spent volunteering at a relief hospital in Jimani, on the border of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Every day I was there, there seemed to be something unbelievable, shocking and unexpected both in good and bad ways that will leave me thinking about this experience for the rest of my life. I feel different now than I did before I left. I feel more grateful for my life. I feel sad and frustrated with cultural and language differences. I feel depressed knowing no matter how similar people can be, there seems to always be two distinct groups: those giving the aid and those taking the aid. I feel hopeful for change and reconstruction- not just of a city, but for the people living within that fallen city. “Haiti is alive!” is something my short eight days in Jimani taught me, and although I would like to include every detail as it happened while I was there, the following are a few of my stories, in hopes to share a better understanding with anyone who is interested to know.
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On my second full day, I had a breakdown. It was sunset, and as the hot, dry day slowly turned into the cool night air, I had to pull away from everything and walk out into the desert alone. It hit me-the death, the despair, the destruction this earthquake had caused. I had been trying to ignore it since I arrived. Trying to ignore the obvious hurt and suffering when you see a 12-year-old or a 60-year-old with an amputated arm. These people had lost everything. Their homes, their schools, their businesses, their family. And now they were the lucky ones, because they had somehow managed to get to the Dominican side of the border to a hospital that was staffed internationally with doctors, nurses and volunteers.

At first the tears were inconspicuous and controlled, but after one fell down my cheek and attempted to wash away the dirt and sweat that was embedded in my pours from the day’s work, they soon flooded out of me with no control. I didn’t know if I was crying for the eminent loss that was everywhere, or the fact that we had just spent the whole day separating family members from patients- telling everyone that only one family member was allowed to every one patient. I watched as patients were given a choice between their family and their doctors. I, along with my Peace Corps peers were not the least bit surprised when patients chose not to break up or separate their family, and instead of waiting for a needed surgery, boarded a bus to go back to Haiti. When the American doctors, nurses and volunteers were puzzled over this choice, or worse indifferent, I couldn’t help but feel ashamed.

I guess as Americans, we are taught to take care of ourselves first, especially when it comes to our health. That if what you need is an operation to live, then of course it will be your first priority. Not everyone in the world thinks like Americans. There are those that would never put anything first before their family. Not themselves, not their success, not even their broken leg, which without surgery will probably never heal correctly. And so we watched and helped the process, as women, men and children with metal rods sticking out of their legs, elbows and arms boarded the bus to return to Haiti.

Crying alone in the desert, I was in a squatting position, stabling myself with my hands in the dirt. Enough, I told myself. I walked back over the pediatric ward, which was a converted chapel on the grounds. I went back to help finish the job- to continue telling these people only one family member could remain. The moment I entered, a young Haitian woman made eye-contact. I didn’t have the guts to look back at her. And as I walked up to another volunteer telling a translator the same repeated message, the woman grabbed my arm and shook her head telling me without words that I didn’t need to cry. I finally made eye contact with her and she smiled. I said in Spanish, “yo se,” or “I know.” Not because she spoke Spanish, but because English just didn’t seem right.

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This process of cutting our numbers did not happen in just one day, and there were even some patients and family members who were more than happy to leave the hospital grounds. Two women in particular, could not have been more relieved to go back to their home country.

A child to each of the women, their number was actually five. While staying at the hospital, they had taken in an orphaned boy whose supposed father was in Port-au-Prince waiting for him. The two women, each holding their own toddler had been protecting the boy while he recovered in the hospital and had promised to take him to his father when they all returned to Haiti.

For the first hour, as the five of them waited for the late bus to arrive, they were happily enjoying the shade of an old, big tree. With no warning, however, this all changed and one of the women started screaming at the top of her lungs at one of the translators. Her eyes were wild and fierce and no one needed to speak Creole to understand that something had just gone horribly wrong.

The translators are a group of 18 Haitian men, also victims of the earthquake, who either had family at the hospital as patients or had found themselves at the hospital with no family or work. Many of them spoke English, Spanish, French and of course Creole- or some combination of these languages. They “volunteered” as translators, and worked with the doctors and nurses to help them with patients. In all honesty, without these 18 guys, the hospital would never be able to function.
One of the translators had been helping me all day with guarding the gate to tell incoming visitors they only had until 4 p.m. for visiting hours. As the two of us stood there in the beating sun, the woman’s anger intensified and she directed it toward the man next to me.

“Tell me what she’s saying,” my voice started to panic.

He hesitated. “She’s not saying anything,” he finally replied in accented English.

“This woman is crazy, do not listen to her.”

“Well just tell me what’s wrong. Why is she screaming? What’s wrong with her?”

“Do not worry,” he said again. “This woman is crazy, she is speaking crazy things.”

I am not a mother, but the way this woman exploded out of nowhere, could only lead me to believe that she was doing everything she could to protect her family, including the orphaned boy. After another translator came over, he finally told us that the woman was in fact protecting the boy because other people (patients, family members, visitors) in the hospital had threatened to steal him and sell him. This is why the whole family was so happy to leave in the first place. They were going back to Haiti to find the boy’s father before he could become another victim of child trafficking.

Once this message had been translated from Creole to Spanish to English and then back to Creole, the boy became the top priority. But these women did not have any kind of papers for him, just their word. They had spoken to his father via cell phone, had made a plan to meet him in Port-au-Prince and then bring him to the boy.
In this moment, I noticed how my thinking had changed. How when the frenzy was happening not because we realized people wanted to steal this boy for profit, but to find papers to make it “okay” for him to travel with these women– I just wanted to get the keys to a pick-up, tell the family to get in and take them across the border myself. The formalities of the situation seemed ridiculous and completely unnecessary. The bottom line was that this boy was unsafe in our hospital and these women had without a doubt saved his life. Why were we putting up a fight about “proper documentation” when once they crossed the border, that paper would mean absolutely nothing anyway?

After more deliberation, waiting and translating it was finally decided the boy would travel with these women without papers (because in reality, the papers never existed and never would exist). A few more hours of waiting for the now very late bus, the family of five finally boarded the bus and went back to Haiti.

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That night, I found myself wondering to the pediatric ward. It had been a long, hot and hard day, and what I wanted most was just to talk with someone about nothing, even if we didn’t have a language in common. The moment I walked into the converted chapel, there were two young patients (12 and eight) who were practicing counting in Spanish. The 12-year-old had a notebook and had written down 1-30 in Spanish and was teaching his eight-year-old bedside neighbor. Without asking, I sat down on the edge of the 12-year-old’s bed and started counting with them. They never missed a beat and we counted all the way to 100 in Spanish together. After this, he wrote down 1-30 again and I knew he wanted to learn to count in English. We started again, and counted 1-50 this time in English.

Both these boys were in the hospital for broken legs. How severely, I am still not sure, but I do know they both had surgery while I was there. As we continued counting, I told them I wanted to learn to count in Creole. We started to count 1-10 in Creole, and every time I would make a mistake or mispronounce a number they would stop, slowly say the number and exaggerate the pronunciation as to make sure I really understood how to pronounce it. They were so serious about teaching me how to say things correctly, and more often than not I would mess-up they would laugh, sigh and start over. It made my life. By this time, another girl, about 10-years-old with stitches that made a crown around her head came over and started to help as well. For the next hour, we all practiced counting in three different languages as other kids, parents and family looked on and smiled at my incorrect pronunciation of Creole.

Every day after this, I made a point to visit these kids (my kids, as I came to call them) at least twice a day. When I would walk in for other reasons, either to bring food or ask the doctors and nurses questions, they would stop me and quiz me on my Creole number skills. Through everything, seeing them became the best part of everyday.

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There were other good things that happened though. One day, about mid-afternoon, I was frantically running around the grounds doing whatever needed to be done at that moment, and I randomly heard the strumming of a guitar. It was coming from one of the giant tents where the patients were, and I quickly ducked inside to see if my ears had heard the correct sound (when the hospital first opened after the quake, the patients refused to stay inside buildings for fear they would collapse again. Because of this, three large tents were erected to serve as wards where the patients were housed). Inside the tent, was a group of misfits: two of the translators, family members, a few patients that could walk, an American nurse, the Spanish team psychologist and fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, Leeann. I walked into the tent to see the two translators, Olsson and Stanley leading the group in a jam-session. They sang in Creole, French, Spanish and English. The words were simple.

Haiti is alive. Haiti no se murio. The same in French and Creole.

I have never seen a smile like I did that day on Olsson’s face. Olsson’s mother was a patient and he initially came to the hospital with his father and mother to get help for his mom. Soon it was discovered that he could speak fluent English and he started to help the nurses and doctors translate with other patients in the same tent as his mom’s. The previous day, when we had limited every patient to have only one family member, Olsson technically should have been forced to leave, because his dad served as the one family member to his mom. However, Olsson took to everyone’s heart and even the doctors and nurses did whatever they could to keep him at the hospital.

Olsson led the group playing the guitar, along with Stanley, another translator who lost 10 members of his family in the quake. We all clapped in unison and alternated the message, “Haiti is alive!” in the four different languages. It didn’t matter if you spoke all four or none; the point of the song was hope. As I watched Olsson, Stanley, patients in their beds or standing, family members, doctors and nurses sing these words at the top of their lungs, the tears poured out of me again.

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The 18 translators had the toughest job out of all of us. Not only were they victims themselves of the earthquake, but they were obviously translating all the needs, hurts and ailments to the doctors and nurses. Think about this. Every time a patient had a question for a doctor or a doctor for a patient, they had to ask it. They heard all the pain, all the suffering and in return they had to tell their fellow Haitians news and instructions from the doctor. When a patient had to have an arm or leg amputated or something similar in devastation, the doctors didn’t tell them, the translators did

One translator, Valentin, left an impression on me that I will never forget. Before the quake, Valentin was a lawyer in Port-au-Prince. He spoke fluent Creole, Spanish, English and French. At lunch one day, a group of us were talking about him and one of the doctors said, “I told Valentin that if I play my cards right, one day I’ll be smart enough to be the translator and he’ll be the doctor.” To say this guy was impressive is an understatement. He had come to the hospital initially because his daughter had been injured in the quake. Soon, however, his abilities were noticed and he quickly became the lead translator.

This day with the translators and Valentin started off wrong. One of us Peace Corps Volunteers decided to go into Haiti (we only have two rules in Peace Corps and if you break them, you are immediately administratively separated: 1) wear a helmet while riding a motorcycle and 2) don’t go to Haiti). Despite this, the temptation for all of us to go over the border was pressing, to say the least. Jimani is literally right on the border and crossing it is not like going through US airport security on your way home from the Middle East. One of us did decide to go, but that’s a whole different story for a different time.

The person who left was in charge of the translators. Their job was to basically keep them happy. This day, unfortunately, they were not happy. At about 10:00 a.m. I got news that the translators may or may not start a revolt against the whole place. I raced outside to the tents and was faced with angry men telling me they were hungry, nobody would feed them, and that they had worked all night and now had to work all day. I agreed with them and told them that we were going to have a meeting that night at 7 p.m. where we will implement a new schedule and make sure the translators could come eat upstairs, with all the doctors, nurses and other volunteers.

The hospital itself was two stories. The first floor served as the ICU, operation rooms and PACU (Post Anesthesia Care Unit) units. The second floor had rooms were the volunteers, nurses and doctors slept, a kitchen and a common room with four large couches were all these people, including all of us Peace Corps kids, could eat and rest.

At 7:00 p.m., Valentin led his group of translators up to the second floor of the hospital where they expected to have their scheduled meeting. Seven o’clock was also the time of the nightly meetings with all the doctors, nurses and volunteers. The man running the show, we’ll call him Steve, called these nightly meetings and thinking Valentin and his fellow translators didn’t belong, kicked them out immediately.

Feeling disrespected and unappreciated, the translators blew up. By this time, they were outside of the hospital in front of one of the patient tents. All of us PC kids were trying to calm them down, telling them that Steve was a moron and didn’t know anybody who was actually volunteering at the hospital. We tried to tell them it was a misunderstanding and that they were in fact allowed to be upstairs just like the rest of us. Valentin looked me dead in the eyes when I tried to personally plead these words with him.

“This was NOT a misunderstanding,” he angrily and intensely said in English. “We are nothing to these people.” And then switching to Spanish without any hesitation, “Nosotros somos perros. Nosotros somos perros. (We are dogs. We are dogs).” And then back to English, “We are not people to them. And you will never understand it, because you are a white girl. What do you know about us? Nosotros somos perros. Perros.”

He never blinked while he said these words to me. He looked me straight in the eyes and never faltered. When he finished, it felt like my stomach had swallowed my heart. I had no words to say to him, because what I really wanted to say was that he was right.

As much as I wanted to disagree with him and even convince myself that I should disagree with him, what happened sort-of blew my mind. The people running the hospital, the people in charge of the whole operation of helping the Haitian people had shown racism does exist in charity.

I believe the entire circumstance was an issue of skin color. At 7:00 p.m., the room had been scanned to start the nightly meeting with doctors, nurses and volunteers. The people who looked different obviously did not belong there and had been kicked out without any explanation or questioning. Valentin was right. They had been treated like dogs that were not welcome inside the house. These people didn’t care, and what did I know- a white girl- about any of it? As much as I could pretend to understand and sympathize, how could I ever really know what it is like to be one of them? Yes I could see the pain and suffering that was happening all around me, but would I ever be able to feel it?

The Spanish psychologist said something to my friend Leeann that hit home with both of us, “these people lost their family, their friends, their homes, their schools, their work and now they come here and they lose an arm or a leg… what hurts worse?” Valentin was right- how would I, a white girl, ever really understand that?

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The next morning, the patients and family members had a church service in the open space in between the tents. Gathered in a big circle, they sang and chanted Haitian church hymns and folk songs. The truth is, I still don’t really know what kind of songs they were- just that as soon as one would start, every single person, no matter how old or young knew the words.

It made me think about my own culture. During Katrina, when thousands of Americans found themselves in a similar situation as Haitians do now – what song did they all sing in a circle? Did everyone know it? Or was it sectionalized and esoteric in a way? Maybe there is something to be said for a national religion. If nothing else, it brings people together through song.

For the last three days I was there, church would happen every morning. Valentin was the leader. Along with other doctors, nurses and volunteers I stood in the giant circle with the patients and family members and would do my best to follow the Creole songs. As we all sang, danced and clapped, I felt like I belonged and the tears would come again, everyday without fail. It didn’t matter that I was not a victim of the quake. I was there, along with all the volunteers trying to help- and that’s what people needed most.

At church, in these moments, you could see people’s true happiness; it was like a glimpse into the person they were before the earthquake. The men and women that could walk would dance in place to the songs and kids and adults on crutches or in wheelchairs would come out from their beds and smile as they watched, sang and clapped. People waved their hands in the air to praise Jesus and God and to thank them for giving them life. Through everything: the hurt, the pain, the suffering- they were still grateful for life. Being a part of this, I have never felt more proud to be associated with such a dignified group of people.

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There are so many other things that happened, day-to-day tasks that we (Peace Corps Volunteers) were all assigned to, like feeding the patients and family member three times a day, providing an updated daily patient census for the doctors and nurses, keeping the translators happy, translating at any random moment from Spanish to English for anyone who needed it, carrying blood bags to and from the hospital, going into town to bargain for wood from the local hardware store to build shelves in the pharmacy, moving patients from the tents to the hospital for surgery, working with amazing people from all over the world, among others. The stories above were just a few that stood out in my mind that I wanted to share. If you have actually made it this far and read the whole thing- the most important thing to know is that HAITI IS ALIVE. And it’s the people in these camps- the kids I counted with, Valentin, Olsson, the women dancing during church to praise God and the doctors, nurses and volunteers from all over the world spending their time to help, that is going to rebuild Haiti. HAITI IS ALIVE and I for one am excited to see it grow.