The staff will have the summer off with their families and I too will return to Portland for the summer and work from there. I'll miss seeing the rise of the walls as the work progresses and I'll beg Andy and Beth and Riche to send me photos to share.
Memories make up the chapters in the nearly 10 years we have been in this house. HHH started with a group of dedicated rehabilitation and support people that saw a vision of providing therapy to people with disability- stroke victims being one of the largest population of our services that stayed hidden in their homes. Little hope of recovery, let alone a semblance of normal life. Someone with a disability must be cursed, no longer seen in their community, no longer valued as a member of the community.
Just as the walls came tumbling down during the earthquake, we saw progress being made in the world of handicap persons in Haiti. Eyes that were closed as if blind to those 'being different' were suddenly opened. Everyone if not related to someone, knows someone now missing a limb. In less than a minute, lives were changed forever and hopefully the chains that bound those with a crippling disease would be broken forever as well. Over the years of providing therapy, building a prosthetic leg or providing a brace, we had seen improvement on a very personal level. More like 'telejol'- communication like the old 'telephone' game whispered in someones ear, people learned they could be helped. It didn't come a government mandate of accessibility, it didn't come from medical referrals - few medical professionals knew about physical rehabilitation let alone recognized the value.
There is the story of the voudou priest whose wife suffered a stroke during childbirth. The voudou priest loved his wife enough to bring her to our clinic for alternative medicine when traditional medicine had no effect. A few years later, a group of us were privileged to watch her dance with her daughters while her husband and sons drummed out a beat. Such joy on everyone's faces that day on the mountain in Furcy.
We saw children take tentative steps with their new braces wrapped around weakened legs, suddenly take off across the room in the new found freedom of movement... like little George and Ti Jean. The smiles on their faces reflecting the happiness of their mom seeing for the first time, a future for their child.
We saw the incredible increase of numbers of surviving spinal cord injury patients due to dedicated professionals sharing their knowledge.
These sound like stories of our clinic but they are the stories of the volunteers that have come to Haiti, the ones that gave up vacation time, that left their secure world of hot water, consistent electricity, their "safe"world for a week or 10 days or 2 weeks, sometimes longer to live in a house without those amenities, to sweat in tropical humidity, to travel on streets with seemingly no rules, to suffer mosquito bites and worry about malaria, to reassure family members who only hear the negative news about Haiti. These are the stories of people dedicated to their profession, dedicated to make the world a better place for those most vulnerable.
We had little option but to take this decision but it wasn't an easy one. It all come down to the financial viability. Fewer volunteers and guests throughout the hot summer months and struggling to get donations to operate the GH and clinic on a daily basis is constant and consistent organizational problem. We are obligated to people of Haiti and must make it work.
It will be a temporary good bye to staff and friends here, none the less difficult. Andy has said he would take care of Gracie if I choose to leave her here until I return. This
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