Haiti one year later....
For me personally, this year has gone by quickly~ I can hardly imagine that if I asked my Haitian friends that they would agree with that feeling. I haven’t had to live in a tent with stifling heat, or protecting my belongings during a rainstorm or blowing away in a hurricane. I haven’t had to worry about finding work, how to feed my kids, I don’t even really have to worry about cholera. I have spent most of the year worrying about them.
Nothing much has changed if you look at the big picture. The National Palace is still sitting broken as a national symbol of January 12. The government buildings are in the same condition. Much of the downtown buildings remain piles of rubble as many areas around the city. There was such an influx of International Aid workers in the beginning that slowly trickled off but when it seems like half of the cars you see in the street have an aid organization logo or name plastered all over them, the aid workers are still here.
All are here to help, some just do it better than others.
Healing Hands for Haiti, in my opinion does it better than most. We are reminded of this when we read the report that our prosthetics and orthotics tech have helped make and fit over 400 prosthesis and nearly 500 orthosis. We are reminded of this as we see more patients come into our clinic everyday to receive therapy and medical care from our Haitian staff. We are reminded of this also because we have been fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of donations and grant money to re-build and establish our outpatint clinic and prosthetics shop. We were able to keep all of our (Haitian) staff employed.
Tuesday was one of those days. We had received word that a Canadian sports network and some Canadian Footballers wanted to visit our clinic. We wanted it to mean something to the guys, more than just a tour around the clinic. We invited our spinal cord patients to come and meet them and if they were willing, to share their stories.
The football team got a little lost driving around for quite awhile but when they arrived already some of our guest patients had arrived and actually been doing therapy. In the end we had 17 spinal cord injured patients come to our clinic. Some came in private car, some our drivers picked up and some came in tap taps. None of this was easy for them. We rounded up the patients and the team, they played a little ‘ball’ participating in a team game of tossing the ball around. Some of the SCI injured visitors shared their story (very briefly) but mostly they thanked us for being there for them, for the CFL players for coming and they were thankful they survived. Many of the patients were friends, had formed their own support group after being months in a hospital together. For some it was a very emotional reunion. These 16 of these spinal cord injured patients are living in and around Port au Prince but one came from Gonaives, driving in a taptap at least 4 hours to come to the clinic for this occasion.
A very emotionally charged experience that I was proud to be part of.
As we commemorate this day, I hope we all remember Haiti maybe taking baby steps to recovery; may look overwhelming in the big picture but they are surviving everyday during the hardest, longest year of their lives with grace and hope.
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