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#