Some Useful[ness]

She was one of hundreds who came to the clinic for burning, stinging, watering eyes, with decreased vision. But hers were the worst I had seen. Her eyes were glassy, red, teared, with the look a pterygium forming. A pterygium is a non-cancerous growth of clear, thin tissue that lays over the white part of the eye. Risk factors are exposure to sunny, dusty, sandy, or windblown areas. The air in Haiti is thick with contaminates: concrete dust, diesel, burning trash of all kinds, burning charcoal for cooking. Everyday we drove in and out of the city, we wore sunglasses and respirator masks (the kind you use to keep tuberculosis, and other infectious irritants out of the body). But she she had access to neither of these. She lived in the tent city next to the ruins of the National Cathedral.

I told her I would give her eye drops to take home, and cautioned her against sitting close to smoke. I also told her I needed to flush her eyes. I tucked a drape under her shirt collar, and had her carefully lean her head outside the taptap window. She stayed perfectly still as as a stream of flushing solution cleaned each eye. When the flush was finished, I used a sterile gauze to wipe away the water streaming down her cheeks. It felt like I was wiping away her tears.

On our last day of mobile clinic, the taptap pulled away from the curb after we had sent the septic two-month-old baby to the hospital. Over a dozen people were still waiting to be seen. I knew they would be seen by my colleagues the following day. But still, I couldn't keep from having to wipe away my own tears, as these beautiful people became smaller in the distance.

Since I've been home, the tears still come easily when I read the news of Haiti, or see commercials on TV for the many aid agencies working in Haiti.

Yesterday I watched a short clip from the Dalai Lama's recent visit to Nova Southeastern. We first saw news of his trip to NSE on the front page of the newspaper while awaiting our connecting flight in the Miami airport. I am always inspired by the Dalai Lama's words. But those that struck me from this talk were this: "The nature of compassion is taking care of others, of their well-being.....My only interest, so long that I have life, is that my life be meaningful, [have] some useful[ness]".

When colleagues at work ask me how my trip to Haiti was, my response has been: "It was beautiful and devastating, and truly the most meaningful thing I've done".

Thank you again for your part in all this. Thank you for your support, your prayers, and for following our blog, so we can tell our story, and the story of the Haitian people.

~Maryclaire

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We will continue to post blogs and stories. We have updated more photos to previous blogs. If you go to "little hands" you'll see many pictures of the beautiful children.