Totally overwhelmed with sadness for Haiti. Watching the news, reading reports online and in the newspaper, it is impossible to envision how its people could and can withstand such a terror.
It brings back feelings of my remarkable visit several years ago to the land of Banda Aceh that was so horribly devastated by the tsunami the day after Christmas in 2004.
My trip with Save the Children took me to the region nine months later (ironically I flew back in the midst of Hurricane Katrina and struggled significantly upon my return with what was unfolding in our own backyard after bearing witness first-hand to such pain and suffering half-way across the world). By the time I arrived, the immediate search and rescue efforts had morphed into what seemed impossible - an effort to piece back together the lives of the survivors. The enormity of the impact was raw and real. More than 100,000 people perished in this region alone. Every individual, every family that we met with had been impacted heavily, having lost a loved one or in far too many cases, multiple loved ones. Where there was once land, homes, and lives, there was now water. Just water. And where the water receded, there were homes completely leveled. Everywhere. It wasn't until I stood next to and looked up at a gigantic barge 3 miles inland that I truly could gain a feel for what it must have been like for the people of this community to have experienced the unfathomable - water high enough and strong enough to whisk in a massive barge 3 miles inland and leave it there. Imagine the damage that could do, the damage it did do. It was unimaginable.
Yet, I was struck time and again by the gentle spirt and eternal hope of the survivors. Until we are faced with the unfathomable, we can't imagine that we could possible live on in such loss, sadness, and devastation. But, somehow we do, through all the fear and the pain. We trek forward. And that is what the people of Haiti will do.
My brother and I spent some time tonight talking. As we sat comfortably and safely in our homes (he in a coffee shop in the snowy town of Burlington living spontaneously), we both shared our intense desire to do something. Right now.
Josh will be in a position to act one day, and he will. I envision he will spend part of his time committed to volunteer work throughout the rest of his life once he graduates from medical school. Be patient, I told him, your time will come. As for me, particularly after my time in Banda Aceh and living through 9-11, and even more so now that I am a mom, I have a growing desire to do something hands on. Most people probably are filled with such a sentiment immediately after watching a grave tragedy unfold. But I hope that someday I take what is a sentiment further and seek out an opportunity to be trained both mentally and physically in some capacity to get on the ground and help. Some day, I would really love to do that.
Until then, Josh passed along an organization called Partners In Health that I will entrust with our contribution to play a small role in this great undertaking.
Here is a link to the organization and a post about their efforts and observations today in Haiti.
http://www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti
01/15/2010Tracy Kidder, author of Mountains Beyond Mountains, pens a blog post for www.standwithhaiti.org:
The catastrophe in Haiti spared the country’s largest – and, I believe, most effective – rural health care provider, Partners In Health. The organization’s principal founder, Dr. Paul Farmer, is on his way to Haiti now with a surgical team. The staff already in Haiti will welcome his arrival, but they have been at work for days now. Indeed, they were some of the first medical personnel to respond to the crisis. This is a large, highly skilled group of about 2000 community health workers, 500 nurses, and 120 doctors. All but a few of them are Haitian. They are spread out now. Thousands of injured people have been traveling from the capital to the hospitals that PIH operates, along with the Ministry of Health, in the Central Plateau – 10 hospitals, all well-equipped and fully functional. Others of the PIH-Haiti team are in the capital Port-au-Prince, where they have set up mobile clinics and where they are now establishing a central base of operations. The plan is to provide emergency care to all comers and to stabilize patients who need higher levels of care and arrange to get them to the PIH hospitals.
Personally, I take hope from the example that PIH has set and is setting again. I think it is one excellent model for the reconstruction of Haiti to come: an endeavor that employs and trains Haitians every step of the way, that builds infrastructure while attending to the basic needs of the poor, that does all it can to strengthen the public sector.
Many people have been writing to ask what they can do. Paul reports, “I just talked to some of my Haitian coworkers who are in Port-au-Prince in the general hospital, and they’ve reported to work. [But] they don't have electricity yet. They don't have the supplies that they need. But there's a lot of Haitian health professionals, doctors, nurses, aides who would like to [do their job], but to do that you need the supplies. You have to have the basics. Gauze, plaster, or other casts. You have to have the equipment that you need. Anesthesia, pain medications, antibiotics. And that's what some of my medical colleagues are asking us for, supplies."
PIH is purchasing and procuring donated supplies around the clock. To aid in these efforts, please consider making a donation to their efforts today.
- Tracy Kidder
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