Just got back home to Minneapolis. I'm thankful for a lot of things one takes for granted - clean drinking water that doesn't taste like bleach, streets that don't have a lot of trash you have to wade through, being able to flush TP down the toilet ... but I'm more thankful for the opportunity to serve and to help some people out who just need a helping hand. As we all said our good-byes at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport after we arrived home earlier tonight, the contrasts struck me. We got into multiple cars. We were all full from dinner on our layover in Miami. All of us had all four of our limbs. It's understandable to feel guilty when you've just been to a place where people go hungry, where over 300,000 people died in an earthquake 16 months ago, where people walk through trash every day - but it's also an impetus to try and do more to help out. Everyone in our group was enthusiastic about going down again. It served to strengthen our resolve to do something about it, to not sit back and feel helpless.
What made this a little easier was the evidence that people can actually make a difference. Not just expat aid workers like ourselves ... but the Haitian people themselves most of all. There were a few striking examples on this past week's trip, our third time back. The trash situation, at least in downtown Port-au-Prince, was noticeably better. There were stretches almost a block long with clear sidewalks, no trash visible on them. Most of the rubble, again in downtown PAP at least, seems to have been cleared away. And perhaps most importantly, on the day before our departure, a new president was inaugurated - peacefully. Yes, there was violence around the election and runoffs. Armed UN troops and vehicles were on every major corner around the presidential palace where the inauguration took place, still in ruins. But the actual transfer of power went smoothly. A president voluntarily stepped down after his second term, obeying the constitution, and handed over the reins of government to his popularly elected successor - a first in 207 years of Haitian history as a republic. It gave us hope that things would continue to get better.
On a more personal note, we saw this week what one small, motivated group of people could do. Those of you who remember our last blog from November might recall us staying up all night with one poor lady who got admitted to Adventist with acetabular (hip socket) and femur (thighbone) fractures from a motorcycle crash. Despite fluid resuscitation and blood transfusions we thought she might not make it. Well, this lovely young lady survived - Jessica Scott and Elinor Shank kept us posted on her progress after we left. Her femur got rodded (kind of like shish-kebabing two pieces of bone together to stabilize them) by the team following us the next week once her hemoglobin stabilized. And as chance would have it, she came back to us this week! We operated on her Thursday to help treat an infection in her femur (we implanted an antibiotic cement nail into her femur). I talked to her beforehand, and she said she remembered us from last fall. Anytime someone asks me, "Don't you feel like what you're doing is just a drop in the bucket and so hopeless? How can you make a difference?" I'll just remember her ... and the difference we made in her life.
Over the past week I feel like we worked hard - multiple 14 to 15 hour days, power outages, operating with lead aprons on while working in 90 degree weather and drenched in sweat, sleeping on army cots and eating rice and beans ... but it was an infinitessimally small price to pay for the chance to make a difference in a few people's lives. We returned to the orphanage run by Franz's parents on Friday and delivered multiple large hockey bags' worth of toys, soccer balls, clothes, and shoes generously donated by churches, friends, and co-workers. As we played with the kids and saw the sheer joy in their faces (yes, we did play "changez mouvement" again this time!), it made us forget our own discomfort. It made us feel like whatever our own problems we might have had, which seemed so huge before, now seem so petty, so irrelevant. And in our own small way, for these kids just as much as for the people we operated on, we made a difference in their lives too.
It's true our contribution was relatively small. After all, we were spending the week working with Terry and Jeannie Dietrich, an orthopaedic surgeon and nurse couple who are in the middle of a year down there, and Nathan and Amy Lindsey, who run the Adventist hospital where we worked, and who are down there for already over a year. But as the saying goes, you do what you can. We all hope to go back sometime soon to this island nation with its natural beauty and its wonderful people. If you're reading this, at some point we hope to talk to you about our experiences in person. And we look forward to continuing to make a difference in a few people's lives, one surgery at a time.
No comments:
Post a Comment