Mamu, mamu, the water is falling down. Be careful!

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As many of you know, I just spent the last week volunteering at a hospital in Port-au-Prince (PAP), Haiti. Actually, I was in Petionville which is basically just a suburb of PAP. Just now I found the website for the hospital (http://www.haitihosp.org/lHopital_de_la_Communaute_Haitienne/Home.html) and became a fan on Facebook. Feel free to check both out if you want.

As for my experience, I am still digesting most of what I saw, smelled, heard, and felt. The destruction in Petionville was relatively scarce compared with the utter devastation in downtown PAP. When we drove through downtown last Saturday we passed by blocks and blocks of crumbled, flattened, and teetering buildings. There were vast stretches where literally every building was affected and nobody was inside. After seeing that, I began to understand why even our ICU patients moved their beds outside to sleep. Traumatized is an understatement. For now, I'm going to choose to tell one story of that trauma:

During the 2nd half of our trip we stayed at a hacienda down the hill from the hospital. Our hosts were incredibly gracious and hospitable. They allowed us to camp in their yard, shower, eat their food, use their toilet, and relax on their patio. Extremely refreshing, and I know that spending the evenings there rejuvenated me for work the next day. Anyway our hostess, Jolene, told us the story of where she was on January 12, 2010 (the day of the quake). Her and her grandson were at the vet and a giant fish tank was in the waiting area. When the quake struck, that fish tank shattered and water flooded the floor. Thankfully, the building held, and both Jolene and her grandson escaped physically unharmed. However, ever since that time, when her grandson sees water on the floor he exclaims, "Mamu, mamu, the water is falling down. Be careful!" The boy is maybe 4 and 5, but his psyche has truly been scarred by the experience. I can only imagine the mental scars in children throughout the country who experience much more trauma than Jolene and her son. The mental aftershocks of this disaster will be felt by this young generation for the next 40 years.

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Photos

Tent City
This is one glimpse of the massive tent city across from the presidential palace.

Comments

[Malibustu]

Video
Sorry that the video is upside down. I'm not sure how to fix it, but maybe you can stand on your head to watch it.