12 – Bon Samaritan

 

At one of the UN meetings we were lucky to meet Yves, who put us in touch with WCN Medical Mission from Warsaw, USA. This remarkable organisation has, to date, provided family providing over 130,000 meals as well as a container that holds another 270,000 meals, to Haiti. To be given the opportunity to work alongside them and offer our assistance is incredibly humbling.

We supported them during their next mobile clinic day, which took us to Cabaret and the Bon Samaritan Orphanage. There, we helped to ensure that each member of the community was provided with essential treatment and medication which, otherwise, they would have not received. We also distributed hundreds of food parcels to this community.

Yves is the most beautiful and kind man you could ever wish to meet. His mother was sacrificed in a voodoo ritual, by his father, when he was three. In the same ritual, Yves’ nose was sliced off and hot pokers were inserted into his throat and he was left to die. After the ceremony, his aunt returned to find that he was still alive. She walked with him for days to get as far away from her village as possible, begging for help and a family took him in and flew him to Boston for medical treatment. His aunt returned to her village since she too would have been killed if they had discovered what she had done – in fact, they thought she had simply buried Yves and still have no idea he survived. Yves returned a few years ago to Haiti (in his 20s) and he spends his time identifying and assessing which groups needs what kind of help; putting them in touch with the correct volunteer groups that he meets. He also runs a school and an orphanage and a place for volunteers to stay. He does all this out of his love for Haiti and with little financial support; he truly is a beautiful human being.

Dehydration, malnutrition, worms, scabies and STDs (the youngest with an STD was 11 and the oldest was 85) were some of the complaints we dealt with in our time in Haiti. Johnny and Jeffty were 2 little boys from the orphanage who stole our hearts and Tracy and I found it very difficult to put them down and smothered them with affection for the whole day. We picked them up the second we arrived and reluctantly handed them back when we were forced to leave.

Johnny was tiny. It was estimated that he was about 3 years old, but the orphanage wasn’t exactly sure. He had a little Benjamin Button face, like an old man with an old soul in a baby’s body. His little body was pretty lifeless and was so underdeveloped that Tracy and I managed to fit him into a 0-6 months baby-grow. His expression was haunting; intense but vacant. There was very little engagement from him and not a sound was made. Jeffty, my little angle, was 2 ½ years old. They knew his age as his father had dropped him at the orphanage 18 months earlier when he was no longer able to care for him. He, too, was unresponsive and  in need of nutrition, Pedialyte and tlc.

Prior to the earthquake, Save the Children estimated there were 380,000 Haitian children living in orphanages. And since the earthquake, the number of children who've lost their parents has more than doubled. However, most of the children in the orphanages, the authorities told us, are not orphans, but children whose parents are simply unable to provide for them. To desperate parents, the orphanage is a godsend, a temporary solution to help a child survive a particularly tough economic stretch. Many orphanages offer regular family visiting hours and, when their situations improve, parents are allowed to take their children back home.
I remember reading a shocking news story on Haiti orphanages before I left Dubai which described that there was no electricity or running water in such places. Lunch looked like watery grits. Beds were fashioned from sheets of cardboard. And the only toilet did not work. Well, as it transpires, the orphanage described in the news story was an absolute palace in comparison to the orphanages I witnessed first-hand in Haiti. Of course, there are levels of variation as with anything, however, establishments such as those depicted in Disney movies or inhabited by orphan- Annie were exceptionally few and far between. To be honest, I didn’t witness any sort of accommodation of these standard (with 1 exception) in any part of Haiti. All the reported sound like luxury when the norm appears to be: tarpaulin, sheets some clothes and not much else. For us, this is a version of extreme camping or a survival course which one would only be able to endure knowing that is was momentary and that there was a warm bath, nutritious meal and comfy bed waiting at the end of the ordeal. Haitian children do not have this luxury. This is their life day in, day out. Living hand-to-mouth each day, irrespective of what fatal weather conditions or other obstacles they are faced with. There must be more we can do. There must!