A Visit to Hell

Day 4 & 8 in Haiti

I was told to smoke a cigarette; instead I inhaled the second hand smoke around me. I was stunned and praying to God while holding back the tears, telling myself to cry later. I stood next to Father Rick inside the refrigerated morgue in Port-au-Prince as he said prayers for the dead. But these weren’t the dead that we are used to, these are the dead in Haiti in which no one has compassion or care. These are the dead in which their bodies are piled and flung on top of one another in atrophied positions. Eyes open, heads bleeding and bodies bloated.

As Father said the prayers I prayed for a greater empathy for the people who work here, for the country to seek a human way to honor a life, but as Father pointed out earlier in the day, all happens for the good of another act. His team goes to the morgue once a week to collect the bodies that nobody wants, that can’t afford a burial. They place the bodies in hand made paper mache coffins, place a rosary in the coffin and bury them in the countryside. A much better place. They are only in the morgue as a transition into their next life.

We returned three days later to collect the bodies and transport them to the burial site. I had these days to mentally prepare, but it was horrific. I stood next to each coffin inside the morgue while the team, all men, placed the bodies inside. The man choosing the bodies, worked for the morgue and he had on knee high boots and gloves up to his elbows, because fluid and bodies parts were spilling out and leaking all over. Our team of guys did a fantastic job and there were three in particular that did all the bodily handling while the others moved the full coffins. One of the handlers sang to keep our mind off of the horror. The children have first priority so 15-20 children at a time fit into one coffin. In total there were around 200. When I looked down to place the rosary in each coffin, the tiny children looked like dolls, some only being a few inches long.

We filled four trucks with coffins and drove about 45 minutes outside the capital to a beautiful plot of land. The graves were already dug by the local peasants. A band played as the men placed the coffins inside the graves.

In order to create a few jobs in a jobless economy, Father Rick has ex-pequeños or youths that once lived at the NPH orphanage, making the paper coffins and rosaries. The grave diggers make a few dollars and so does the band.

This experience has made such a strong impression on me. When I close my eyes I can still see the bodies. While I was in the morgue I kept telling myself that they are going to a peaceful, lovely place. That was all I could think about, inside that building of hell.

The cost for this outreach program, Burials for the Indigent, is $52,000 a year for 2,000 children and 500 adults.

For more photos, visit
Burying the Dead
http://picasaweb.google.com/MonicaGery/BuryingTheDead?authkey=vVmCzMjX4_k#

18 hours to Gonaïves and back

Day 2 & 3 in Haiti

It started like a normal day. Truck packed, on the road, nice weather, wind in your hair, except that we were headed into the disaster zone of the effects of a hurricane and the onset of an approaching one. Hanna and Ike, not pleased to meet you and neither is the country of Haiti.

Our truck was one of five on route to Gonaïves with supplies of purified drinking water, food, clothes, medical supplies, generator and diesel. After two hours of beautiful landscape, we began to see some remnants of the flooding. Houses with a few feet of water and flooded fields. There are two routes into Gonaïves, one was entirely under water and the second was rough but we made it through. When we entered the outskirts of the city at 12:30 pm, Father Rick, Nebez and Rafael met us on the highway into town. They had flown in the night before by UN helicopter and slept on the Sisters of Charity roof.

As we drove into the town, people were leaving in droves, 10,000 according to the NY Times. Everything was covered in mud. The majority of the streets were flooded and as we entered the town square all the streets were flooded. Many families were living on their roofs with a tarp protecting their belongings. Bridges collapsed, cars and trucks were flipped over, mud and water filled the homes. When we arrived at the Sisters of Charity, their street outside their compound was not flooded, but once you entered their gates, it was 2 feet thick of mud. The water had been up to the first floor roof and a handful of their sick elderly drowned because they were standing on benches and they lost their balance.

When the other trucks arrived, we split up and half of us went to a local parish to distribute 21,000 servings of drinking water. To unload the other trucks at the Sisters we had to walk through the mud carrying the bags. At 6:30 pm it was dark and started to thunder. Hurricane Ike was approaching but according to the weather that morning it was north of Haiti, aiming for Cuba. The problem was that Hanna was a tropical storm status when it touched Haiti and it inflicted so much flooding damage; much of this is due to the area's deforestation.

When the generator was unloaded and we hit the road with our caravan, it was 7:30 pm raining and dark. Our five trucks left Gonaïves to make the estimated five hour drive back to Port au-Prince. Two hours into the drive, there was a delay due to other trucks stuck in front of us. We were stopped for about one hour. It was raining lightly but nothing extreme. Each hour that passed, the rain increased. At 2 am, we arrived at the river at Mirebalais. It was raging and with the heavy rain and thunder there was nothing we could do besides wait it out. Our truck had seven people in it and after being tired from a long day we all fell asleep. I was nudged between the driver and Fr. Rick. At 5 am, the rain finally stopped and it started to get light, but the river was the same. There was no way back and no way forward.

As the neighbors began to wake up, more and more people came out to assess the river. Music started to blare from a shack and Father told us that it was voodoo music. He said if the voodoo gods can’t help us then maybe the catholic ones can. He has a good sense of humor. Within two hours, the guys in our group started to gather the bystanders and started to wade in the river. They began moving large boulders and figuring out the best way across. At 9 am Fr. Rick told myself, and three others, that we should cross the river and that he called someone to pick us up on the other side. We waded in and held hands as we crossed with the water up to the tops of our thighs.

As we were waiting on the right side of the river that guys worked especially hard to create a path across. They were able to get one truck across even though it took them 1 hour. At times they were digging lots of mud out from the bottom of the truck. At 10 am a bulldozer arrived. It cleared a better path and our four other trucks got across and by 11 am we were on our way home.

Father then took us all out to eat at the local deli for a burger and fries. There were about 15 of us. When we returned, I never felt to relived to take a shower and to sleep horizontal in a bed.

Unfortunately Ike slammed Gonaïves again and many other parts of Haiti like Cabaret, where 50 children drowned (we went there yesterday). Port au Prince had some flooding as well but the hospital where I am staying in Tabarre is fine. The orphanage in Kenscoff did have some damage with the roof blowing off the school, fallen trees, and leaks.

I’m not sure if it was the voodoo gods or the catholic ones, but we were all very relived to make it back safety. Sadly, the Sisters were flooded again. The water up to their second floor and the have to start the whole clean up process over again. The government postponed the start of the school year one month due to all the misplaced families.

Click this link to view photos