Patients and Orphans

For John’s first full day in Haiti and my (nearly) last day, it was a full one.

We spent the morning wandering the mission’s clinic – John gathered some audio while I photographed. The clinic is spartan by most any American standard, dimly lit and so crowded that patients must push and shove just to get down the main hallway to see a nurse or doctor. But by Haitian standards it is more than adequate and, most attractive to many, it is free. This is not to make excuses for setting poor standards of care when there’s a good chance you’ll get away with it. Excellent health care, after all, should be available to everyone no matter their economic status. But in Haiti, health and relief organizations have to do the best with what limited resources they have.

There is a group of American surgeons here for a week, performing hysteractomies and other gynecological procedures. I passed a couple of hours in the operating room while surgeons removed a uterus full of tumors, a common condition among Haitian women.

After lunch, we went with some of the mission’s sponsorship staff to deliver presents to the special-needs orphanage. Finally, we took an hour-long tap-tap ride to the neighboring city Port-a-Paix to visit the mission’s primary orphanage. It houses more than 150 children and can be more than a little anarchic. But again, by Haitian standards, it is quite a respected orphanage.

It was rewarding to get to work alongside John and discuss his impressions with him as he sees Haiti. Tomorrow (Wednesday) will be my last day here, and I regret not being able to spend more time together. But perhaps I’ll be able to convince him to come down again in the near future…

Tomorrow we’ll make the requisite visit to the market (a must for your first time in the developing world), and I’ll interview an American couple in the afternoon for an upcoming story. Time to wind down, to head back to my own country and my beautiful wife, who I miss greatly each time I travel.









Above: Women await their prenatal checkups at a clinic in Saint-Louis du Nord, Haiti; Me photographing surgery in the surgical ward; Children bathe at the Chalet Children’s Orphanage in Port-a-Paix – after bathing, the children quickly return to playing in the dirt.