New Eyes Needed to "See" Haiti

After a few days in Port-au-Prince, our group of 8 Mercy Sisters plus 4 tag-alongs, like me, headed north to a town called Gros Morne.  We were told the drive would take 4 hours.  It actually only took 3 1/2 hours. Gros Morne is only 110 miles from Port-au-Prince.

Gros Morne has a population of about 35,000 but it also serves the rural communities in the surrounding mountains where another 100,000 people or more live. 

We visited the church and school in one such community.  It was situated literally at the end of the road (if you can call it that).  The drive up there, including 7 or more river crossings, was....well, it was a bruising adventure.

At one point in our visit, we were taken out to a hillside behind one of the school buildings so we could see the reforestation project on the mountain side across the way.  I noticed that there was some trash where we were standing though there was no trash anyplace else on the school grounds.  Eventually, the children started gathering around but I dismissed it as just curious school children wanted to see "Le Blanc." Finally, our guide told us we would have to move as the children were waiting to relieve themselves.  The hillside was the "bathroom"!

Next we visited the extremely modest rectory and were served a modest lunch.  Again, the children started gathering around the doors and windows, and just stared at us. Again, I dismissed it as just curious school children. Somebody had to point out to me that the children did not follow us when we left the rectory to visit the church.  They stayed at the rectory because that's where the food was.  These were hungry children.

I felt terrible that we ate our fill while the children went hungry.  Then, I realized I'd done that every day of my life.

"What the eye doesn't see, doesn't move the heart"

-Haitian Proverb

Life in the Streets of Port-au-Prince

In late January, 2012, three months after a chance meeting in the Milwaukee Airport, I met up again with Sr. Mary. This time, we were in the Port-au-Prince, Haiti airport and soon to meet with up the 10 others in our group, including 7 more Mercy Sisters.  The Mercies were looking for ways to establish a presence in Haiti and, at least to start, they wanted to partner with an organization already established in Haiti.  So, one purpose of this trip was to meet with various potential partners.

Thus, we visited several schools, an orphanage, a medical clinic, low income housing projects, a homeless shelter, a hospital including a cholera ward, a water purification project, etc. Some of these projects were in the capital, Port-au-Prince and others were in Gros Morne, a town about 110 miles north of Port-au-Prince.

It really is impossible to accurately and completely describe Port-au-Prince. It is a teeming city of over 2 million people. Evidence of the earthquake’s devastation is still everywhere, including tent cities where parks used to be. I’ve been to developing countries many times before but I’ve never seen anything like Port-au-Prince.

One story is illustrative. Early one morning a call came to the “Matthew 25 Guest House” where we were staying. The caller reported that there was a woman in distress in the street nearby.  He asked that the two MD Mercy Sisters go to her assistance.  So, the two doctors grabbed their bags and headed out to the street. There, they discovered a woman, giving birth….in the street.  Such is life in Port-au-Prince.

Don't talk to strangers in airports!

Don’t talk to strangers in airports-you could end up in Haiti!

Last November, I was in the Milwaukee Airport, returning to Tucson from a conference.  I wandered into a restaurant to get some lunch and saw a woman sitting there by herself. She looked like a nun to me.  By that I mean, although she was wearing lay clothing, she was about my age (mid 60s), had short grey hair, no makeup and a cross around her neck. So, I introduced myself and joined her for lunch.  Turns out she was/is a Mercy Sister and was returning from the same conference I had attended. Much to my surprise, she was heading to Tucson, on the same exact Southwest flights as I.

Now, there’s one advantage to not having assigned seats on Southwest that had never occurred to me before.  If you should pick up somebody in the airport, you can sit next to her all the way home.  So, I did.

Sr. Mary was on sabbatical, after spending many years in leadership for her community. As part of her sabbatical, she was on retreat at the Desert House of Prayer in Tucson.  We had a lot of time to talk on our way back to Tucson. I mean this was Southwest, after all.  It was not a direct flight.

We hit it off just great, talking about many things that are important to both of us and, by the time we arrived in Tucson, I was signed up for a weeklong trip to Haiti!