20 Jan.
What initially started out as a rather slow day turned out to be one of the most eventful, adrenaline-filled and introspective experience of my life! Oh, and I witnessed a few lives being saved too!
After a rather mundane morning filled with many administrative chores, I found myself in the back of a motorcycle, speaking to the head of our logistics in London, blitzing through the heaviest and most erratic traffic I have ever seen, while signaling to the blue-helmet,UN peace-keeping troops along the way to let us through and hanging on for my dear life! “We have a situation” Tim’s voice echoed through the satellite phone that was dangling from my left ear. Of course we do… You see, as I’ve come to appreciate through this whirlwind of a project, in Haiti, though “everything is possible, nothing is sure!” So, the situation, as Tim went on to explain was that the 3 trucks, filled with 5 tons of medical supplies, had not arrived at the warehouse and that the drivers were actually lost! “There is also talk of looting going on, so we need someone to head towards the airport ASAP, locate the trucks and secure them!”
So, after a quick assessment of the situation at hand (oh boy, barely 5 days of sharing a tent with the logistics leader and I’m already starting to speak like a “Loggie”), I ask the UN guard to recommend a safe driver and vehicle to get me to the airport quickly and safely! I’m not sure if it was the inherent sense of urgency or a pure feeling of disillusionment, but hopping on the back of a passing-by motorcycle seemed to make sense at the time. Off, I went, flying though the dusty streets of Port au Prince, looking for these elusive trucks, as if they were the holy grail! For as long as I’m alive, I will never, ever forget what transpired over the following 20 minutes. With an influx of cars, bikes and pedestrians coming at us the opposite way, we zig -zagged through the convoluted streets of this crazy town, while slapping away pick pocketers and pleading with UN security to let us through closed off streets.
Miraculously, with a great deal of coordination through London, we managed to track down the trucks and secure the cargo, which meant that , in the end, 5 pounds of medical supplies would indeed get to the people of Haiti… Now, who says aid is not getting to Haiti!!!
Aid is getting in – make no mistake!; and Merlin is doing all it can to expedite the process. To paraphrase Golda Meir, “Never doubt the ability of a small, dedicated group of people to change the world… Indeed, it is the only people who ever have!” Though I’ve been quoting this iconic leader for a while now, I’ve never truly understood the meaning of this powerful phrase until recently – until I had the honor of being part of Merlin’s team on the ground in Haiti. Looking back over the past few days and realizing just how much we’ve been able to do – from partnering up with local organizations to finding a suitable, secured area to operate in the midst of one of the worst hit areas, to actually saving life after life, I am truly amazed by how much we’ve accomplished!
Here’s another useful phrase that may not be as inspiring and moving as Golda’s words, but equally relevant…“What exactly happened to you?” – If you ever need to learn French as part of a medical emergency relief effort after a natural disaster, this is precisely the phrase that you must learn… “Qu’est=ce qui vous etes arrivé?”
Bouncing from patient to patient in our newly established “field hospital,” I found myself translating this very query in order to assist Merlin’s medical staff and to help make light of the origins of many complex fractures and various trauma injuries. And though I must confess that my initial tolerance for trauma, blood and severe injuries rivaled my medical knowledge, I’ve surprised myself, lately, with my increasing threshold for such things…
I wish I could recite the names and stories of each patient I met today. What I will never forget however is the opportunity I had to be able to assist Merlin’s medical staff this afternoon. I don’t profess to have a single bit of medical expertise, but I’ve realized, lately, that there is so much more to “medicine” than pure science. The human condition, i.e. connecting with each patient on as much of a personal level as possible, I feel, is truly paramount to making one feel “better.” Perhaps it’s just my way of justifying my medical ineptitude, but I know that in the end, we all did our part today… We all helped as many people as possible, in whatever way we could. And that satisfaction was only heightened by the fact that we managed to get 5 tons of medical supplies through safely!
With every “success story” however, it seems that there are so many glimpses of reality that ground us back to the gravity of the situation. In this particular case, I met a wonderful little girl, Makenle (who’s turning 2 tomorrow) whose mother had been crushed and died during the Earthquake and, as a result, had fallen on top of her and had broken her arm. Just sit back and think about this for a minute… Seeing your own mother dying is one thing, but imagine witnessing such an atrocity in those conditions… a week shy of your second birthday! Makenle also had a pretty bad gash on her head, but we assured her father that in the end, she would be ok.
I fought hard to hold back the tears to translate to her brave dad that for now, all she needed was to get her cut disinfected and that we would put her arm in a cast… At this point, the father uneasily mentioned to me that he didn’t have any money to pay for the cast. I assured him that Merlin would take care of her, free of charge, at which point, I couldn’t hold it anymore…I had to leave and broke down in a corner… Not just because of Makenle but also because of the dignity of her father who, despite having lost his wife and being left alone to take care of his 2 year old daughter, had waited in the blistering sun for hours to explore every option to get Makenle better. And Merlin would provide such services in the end… Again, I couldn’t be prouder!
I’ll never forget Makenle. I hope to come back to Haiti one day and visit her and her father, at which point, maybe I’ll mention to both of them how much they’ve affected me!
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