Our visit to the General Hospital

None of us were doctors.  We all knew this.  Maybe we have been so hardened by mainstream media, that what we saw did not move us.  Maybe without words, we just knew that whatever we saw when we walked in to that hospital would be beyond our control, and there was nothing we could do to fix any of the children, but pray that they would be okay.  

Thinking back about the children I did not photograph, the baby with the exposed brains, or the child who literally looked like a skeleton with skin- with flies swarming its tiny little body, I can only think about the Serenity Prayer.  

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference."  

You know, the prayer that is always prayed at the end of any Alcoholic Anonymous meetings that may be portrayed on television, well I wholeheartedly believe that that prayer applies to our visit to the General Hospital in Port au Prince.  

Our mission upon going to the hospital was to pass out diapers, formula, bottles, and clothing to mothers in the ICU, and the mothers waiting for their sick children to be seen.  We visited three different buildings, beginning with the ICU and expectant mothers.  There we saw some of the tiniest babies you could imagine, all with their families near by, and doctors keeping a close watch.  Then we went to two wooden buildings across the street, where women would bring their sick children in hopes that they would get help.  There were women   sitting on the ground, and in chairs with their babies waiting to get a bed, and possibly an I.V. of fluid, and other women lined up in rows next to filled cribs with crying sickly children.  Once these women had their children in cribs they would be seen by a doctor, and in turn given a prescription to be filled.  Once the prescriptions had been handed out, most of the mothers would just stand there and wait, because barely any of them had the money to go get the prescriptions filled. So Mona went around collecting prescriptions from women at random to be filled, and took the prescriptions to the Pharmacy, and then we waited.  And waited.  

Soon a woman in a bright yellow top came out of the dark wooden building wailing, and crying.  She had a piece of paper in her hand, and she said in creole that her baby was dead, and that she had to take the piece of paper to the morgue so they would know to come and pick the child up.  This happened once more while we were sitting there waiting, and who knows, maybe we had taken their prescriptions to be filled, and it was just too late.  I can not say.  

We did what we could while we were there.  And although our offerings were not permanent, and probably didn't save any lives, we accepted the little change we tried to make, and the serenity to know that bad things happen to everyone, and there was nothing more we could ourselves could do but pray.  

The little things may not seem like much, but children don't see it that way

Childhood.  A time that most adults look back on longingly remembering the things that helped shape them most.  I had a dream last night that took place in my Grandparents old farm house.  There was nothing special or significant about this dream, but I woke up thinking about how often I have dreams that take place in this house despite the fact that I have not been inside it for over 13 years.  This place that I spent so much time in, a place where my father lived, and my grandparents lived, and my great grandparents lived.  A place where I ate homemade blueberry pancakes with real maple syrup, where I  lied on the grass watching the clouds above morph in to familiar shapes and figures as my grandma and I would shout them out by name, and the garage where my grandpa would take me so we could sit in a hideous caution cone colored orange chair reading children's books he once read to my father.  The people who lived in this place along with many other adults in other places I went, molded me, and my mind, and the way I am today.  For example, I love blueberries, and sometimes I can look at things and not see them for exactly what they are, but for what they could be, and I love to read, which in turn has expanded my abilities to write.  My love of photography came from my mother, and my contemplative silence from my father, my tomboyish ways from my brother, and religion from my daycare providers.  

No one could have predicted exactly what would have stuck with me, but whether these people knew it or not those are some of the things and some of the memories that have been ingrained in my mind, and my being.  

As we were bumping along in the back of the white pick up truck through the dirt and dust of Port au Prince, reluctantly headed toward the airport, I was thinking about Papa Cassey. About what his children gained from his presence, and how they so cherished the time they were able to spend with him.  And although I know I will never be as significant in their lives as he was- not even close- I thought about what they will say about me when they remember their childhood.  I have not given them much in the way of possessions, but if nothing else I hope they remember how I kept coming back. I also plan on knowing them as adults, but I just hope one day that they look back on the time they spent at the Good Shepherd Orphanage as children and remember me as the woman who was there from time to time for the little things, like a game of basketball, or cartwheels in the rain, or just a nice long hug.   I hope they interpret my my persistence, my never ending supply of hugs, and my efforts to learn creole as my form of love for them.  And that they will feel blessed, as I feel blessed to know them, and all the adults that helped me along the way.