Sunday, January 31, 2010

 

Judith's Deployment - Update #4

Its January 31, 2010 and this is one of two posts I am going to put up today. This post is a short one, containing one email from Judith. I wanted it to stand alone as one post because of it's power. When I read it soon after she sent it to me it really shook me up as evinced in my reply back to Judith: "This made me cry. Its unbelievably powerful in its purity and sadness. Luv u, F-"

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Sunday, January 24, 2010 5:13 PM; Subject: Individual Stories
There was just a man at my interview window, who lived on Canape Vert. He was here with his Amcit son. I asked if Hospital du Canape Vert was still there. He told me that it was totally pancaked. His son's school in Keskea (I don't know how to write that), is gone too. I remember that name. He also thinks our house is gone. It is those little things that remind me of the personal tragedies of this disaster. It is almost impossible to believe that most of Port-au-Prince is just rubble. Where we drive, we see some evidence, but not much, a house that is dangerously leaning forward and a little cul-de-sac from which only the road is OK, the houses are rubble.

Some more stories:
-An Amcit arrived yesterday at the airport and he was off his bipolar meds. When he decided to go to the airport, he was manic and was trying to control himself without medicine. When he first arrived, he had four guys with guns around him because he flailed and talked erratically. His eyes looked mad. We got him somewhat calmed down and sitting and he explained that Paul Farmer had arranged for him to fly. He kept on mentioning Paul Farmer, but we did not want to ask, so to not send him on another tangent. He told us that he had to focus on familiar faces and first he picked David and then me. Sooooo, there we were, pretty much strapped to a mental patient. He needed to be assured constantly that he wasn't dead. That was his greatest fear, that he did not know he was dead. His dialog pretty much went like this: "Paul Farmer wants me to go home because my students need me. OK. It is 1030 right now, on the count of three, we disconnect. One, two, three, (closes his eyes), disconnect. OK, I am back. Am I dead? (I would ask him if he could feel my hand, if he did, he was not dead). He would hold our hands, rap his arm around our legs (he was sitting and we were standing), and kissed us when he felt elated that he was still alive. The military finally came to bring him to the med tent, sedated him, and flew him to the USS Comfort (the hospital ship). Afterward the doctor came back over and told us that Paul Farmer was his boss here in Haiti. He has an identical twin brother with exactly the same condition. Very intense. We had to decompress for a while after that.

-News break: some dude just walked into our section with three pizzas from Atlanta! Because we are working here. He is our hero of the day. That is what people do all the time around here. Bringing us food from the U.S: pizza, donuts, chips and dip. So appreciated by all. Not only the food, but the thought behind it even more.

-Yesterday, I met the cutest, cutest little girl. An ICE (immigration and citizenship enforcement?) brought a U.S. soldier over to our manifest table at the airport and told us to put him on the manifest first. The soldier told us that he is originally from Haiti and was on staff duty when his commander told him to call home. He did not understand, but did it anyway and found out there was a quake. The first mention of it was on CNN without any pictures and they thought it was just a little quake. Then, the pictures started flowing in and he heard a lady stating that she drove on Delmas road and she only saw destroyed houses. His sister lived on Delmas. That is when he went into high gear, booked himself on a plane to Haiti, rebooked himself via Santo Domingo when the first plane was canceled, and got on a nine-hour bus ride from there. He arrived in Port-au-Prince and immediately when to Route Delmas to find his family. He heard pretty quickly that his sister and husband had died, but did not know what happened to his cute little niece. He showed her picture to all people and finally found her at some woman's house. He was soo, soo, happy. ICE will get her humanitarian parole once she gets off the plane in Florida. All pre-arranged. I had to bring the little girl to the port-a-potties and when we walked back she gave me a big hug. That made me cry and she grabbed my face with both her hand and had her nose touch mine. OMG! And the soldier felt blessed that all of us helped him through this. And I am thinking, where were the blessings when your sister and brother-in-law died in the rubble?

-A load of doctors came in the day before and yesterday. They were the first ones to rotate back to the U.S. from general hospital, I think. You know, all evacuess who walk up and get the promissory note presented to them, ask us if they have to pay because they are missionaries, or doctors, or whatever. "Everybody is special," has become our motto. So, a whole group of doctors walked in and one asked if they had to sign the note too. I said, "just like everybody else who is evacuated." And he said, "You don't even know what we have been through." and just started crying. They had amputated left and right and did not have a place to dispose of the limbs, they had seen so much misery. Sad. This is where the CNN story came in. I told him to read it.

-But, at the airport we are all working really well as a team. We have the Airforce getting and giving all the flight information and the number of seats available. We have the Coast Guard running around, doing security, and helping us with bags, accompanying children to the bathrooms etc. We have DMAT people who do the same and make sure that we drink enough. And we have the RSOs who joke with us and keep us safe. The girl-RSO actually told us the secret that you can go to the bathroom on the plane. We now also have ICE guys working with us and I think that is working well too.

-A woman had this cute pink file with dots from JCPenny for all her documents. This makes you realize again that she is an individual and not just an anonymous person going through this earthquake. The same with the guy who had the same birthday as my dad, a person named "nelson" almost like my old cat, a girl with a cute belt and big old brown eyes. I can go on and on.

Editorial Notes:
(Let me dry my eyes, first. This email was very emotional for me.)
-"Hospital du Canape Vert" - The hospital on Green Canopy Road was not far from our house. It was the top hospital in Port au Prince. We drove by it frequently and in a dire situation, embassy staff would use it but there was always an adventure story to hear about at happy hour if any of your colleagues had to go there.
- Paul Farmer is a prominent physician, and anthropologist who works on global solutions to sickness and disease by focusing on the poorest and sickest parts of the world; Haiti being one of these type of places.
- Promissory Note - everyone being provided a flight to evacuate from Haiti was required to sign a promissory note which established the fact that the evacuee was effectively accepting a loan for the price of the flight. These were a bit controversial under the circumstances but they had to be done before anybody could be evacuated. Also, as far as the initial military flight out of Haiti went, its thought that its very unlikely the government would attempt to follow-up and collect.
- DMAT - Disaster Medical Assistance Team; under Department of Health and Human Services

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