What a society of babies we are! What do we really have to complain about?
A Day in the United States...
My pediatrician’s office is three miles from my house. When my three year old son Kiefer is sick, I call to make a same day appointment without hassle. I am annoyed today as my plans for my monthly manicure and pedicure must be rescheduled. Upon driving my Audi convertible into the spacious parking lot, I enter an air-conditioned office smelling of cleaning supplies and casually hand the receptionist my glossy white Health Assurance card. Without considering the miracle of health insurance, I sit in the plush waiting room, complete with the latest in children’s toys to entertain already overly entertained minds. Fifteen minutes later, a trained physician with credentials and diplomas on the wall come in briskly looks over my son, cracks a few jokes and casually hands me a white piece of paper with indecipherable words. Without thinking I hand over my co-pay, and my little prince is rewarded for being such a good little boy with a red lollipop. I strap my son into his three point harness, hop back into my Audi, and speed down the smoothed paved road to a fully stocked pharmacy. Here the antibiotic my son needs to get better will be presented, paid for, then off we go to our spacious home where my son will enjoy a lunch of his choice and an afternoon diet of Toy Story and Thomas the Tank Engine while I surf Ebay from my pink iPhone.
Back in Haiti...
When Haitian mother Rosalind’s 3-year-old Francois is sick, she gets up before dawn. She and her son board a rickety sailboat from La Gonave for a two-hour boat ride on a wooden piece of scrap that serves as a bench. Her child must be severely ill, for a child in Haiti does not have the luxury of visiting a doctor for every sneeze and sniffle.
Upon arriving at the crowed dock, she hands the last of her money over to a selfish bus driver who is charging 12 gourds instead of 10. The bus to Port-au-Prince is packed. Over 50 Haitians with sunken cheeks travel shoulder to sweaty shoulder in an old school bus. The overpowering smell of BO, fried plantains, smells of burning rubber, sewage are mixed together into a rancid tossed salad of smells.
The bumpy dusty rides gives views of mile upon mile of refugee camps, some equipped with army tents and outhouses, but most are, a mish-mash of blue tarps, scraps of metal and garbage bags tied together to make a shelter place over three million people call home. Everywhere children of any and every age beg for food, water and money. She waits, calmly, son in her arms on the side of the road for anyone who might be able to help her. She spies a pickup truck and a Haitian man putting water into an overheated radiator. Inside the truck are two white mission workers. She has never asked for money; her pride is too great. But with her love for her son and the urgency of the situation, she cautiously approaches the two. “Excuse me” she whispers in Creole. “My son is sick. Has a high fever and diarrhea and has not eaten in two days. Look at him please! Can you help me to pay for his hospital bill and medicine?”
The two Americans look at the little boy, asleep for now in his mother’s arms, sweat pouring down his scrunched up face. The woman hands her a $20 bill and an uncomfortable smile. Perhaps she is a mother too in her country and understands. With a grateful whisper of “merci”, she walks on foot towards the hospital.
When she arrives, a giant mound of debris greets her. The building is no longer there, as the earthquake wiped out all three stories. She can see the accordion like levels, as medical equipment, wires and steel peek out from the layers. Nearby is an army tent, serving as the hospital since the earthquake.
The sun is high in the sky now, and beats down mercilessly on her feverish son. But still she waits one hour, then two. On the third hour a handful of nurses exit the tent, complaining loudly. They sit under a nearby palm tree leisurely eating their lunch. Three hours goes by as children wail, mothers try in vain to comfort their hungry, ill children. There is no toys, no seats. Just a long line stretching out to the road.
When it is finally her Francious turn, she hesitantly enters the tent. All around are children lying on mats haphazardly thrown on the floor. IV bags hang from wire hangers, and dust covered medical equipment sit idle in the center of the tent. There is no doctor on duty. Only a handful of overworked and apathetic nurses doing the work of two dozen. There is no medicine available for her son’s sickness; there are only wet rags to place over his little face, and a recommendation by the nurses to see if she can find children’s Tylenol in the marketplace. So she leaves the tent as she wanders among the masses of expressionless, glassy eyed people move aimlessly through the marketplace that is surrounded by collapsed buildings as the setting sun colors the sky.
Ironically, both mothers expect their situation and accept it as their fate.
-- Kristen Hertzog
Executive Director Haitian Connection Network
www.haitianconnectionnetwork.org
"What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal."
-Albert Pine, English Author, d. 1851
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