Konbit!

3/01/2010

I have been here a week now and have seen several groups come and go.  Each night at eight we have a meeting and “debriefing session” of the day’s events.  This also gives the new volunteers a chance to introduce themselves and ask questions.  It’s amusing because the arrival of each group brings the same questions.   

They ask about taking pictures and have to be reminded that most Haitians are very superstitious about photos.  Haitians believe that each time they have a photograph taken of them, a part of their soul is given away.  One can only imagine what they feel when people arrive and start non-discretely shooting pictures of them in their tents as if they were some sort of freak show.  Sad to say, some journalists have shown up unannounced and have done exactly this.  It is for this reason that I have chosen not to photograph any patients in the medical tents.  

On the other hand, I have found that if one asks “M’kab fe yon foto ou?”  (May I take your picture?) the response is an enthusiastic “WI!” the majority of the time.   Kids especially love to be photographed here.  The only condition is that they can see their image in the LCD screen when finished (which invariably results in wild laughter).  I finally figured this out the other day.  These are kids that have never been photographed before and certainly haven’t ever seen their own picture.  Compare this to the US where most kids have hundreds if not thousands of pictures taken of them before their fifth birthday.   The kids are certainly not camera-shy here.

The other issue that invariably arises on the first night is, “There seem to be a lot of patients in the tents that don’t really need to be here”.  They would be technically correct as the wounds and illnesses of many patients have improved and they don’t need to be in a hospital per se. An interesting thing, however,  has happened in the tents over the past six weeks.

In traditional, rural Haitian society, the work typically consists of subsistence farming and hard, manual labor.  It would be unrealistic for a family to expect to do all the labor by themselves.  What has developed as a result of this is the “Konbit”.  The closest word I can think of in English for this would be “Co-op”.  Essentially it is a village cooperative where the work is divided up amongst all the community members in exchange for the goods produced.

Each tent, over the past several weeks, has established within itself its own community, its own konbit!  Walking past a tent one sees patients and their families washing each others’ hair, bringing in provisions for each other, walking patients, playing cards, etc.  The nurses have acknowleged that breaking up these little mini-communities would be devastating. Besides, as I noted before, the patients have absolutely nothing to return to.  

There is some talk, as it becomes less medically necessary, to turn the tents into a sort of “refugee camp” to allow the people more time to either assimilate into the community of Milot or relocate elsewhere.  This, obviously, is a controversial issue in Milot and with Sacre Coeur Hospital. I have not heard the verdict yet on the issue.  There is no “Hospital Social Work” here and no way to simultaneously help so many people re-acclimate after the disaster.

An amusing side-note.  I took care of a man from the Dominican Republic the other night in the medical clinic because I was the only one who spoke Spanish.  The following morning he returned demanding to see the Department of Social Work so they could pay for a bus back to the Dominican Republic for him.  When I told him no such thing existed he gasped 

“ Well! In the Dominican Republic each hospital has a Department of Social Work and they can take care of this for people like me!”

“ Buddy, in case you haven’t noticed, this ’aint the Dominican Republic!”

On a sadder note, the work is really starting to drain me physically and mentally.  There just dosn’t seem to be enough hours in the day for all the cases that need to be done.  My sleep has been sub-par for the past week in the un-airconditioned military style cots accompanied by rooster operettas through the night.  But most of all, the sad stories of the patients have caught up with me mentally.  Every day I have had at least one patient who has lost both parents in the quake.  Several patients have lost all family members altogether.  I’ve tried to stay positive but eventually everyone here reaches a point where they become simply exasperated and overwhelmed.