little hands

A small hand slipped into mine at the end of the day, while we were walking a path on the Nazarene grounds. It belonged to one of the parishioner's children. Many of the Nazarene parishoners, like so many Haitians, lost everything. They are living in tents on the five acres of the church grounds (our base camp). Every evening we come home, and every morning as we load up the truck, children flock to us. They have bright eyes, beautiful smiles, and eager helping hands. They are happy to be made busy boxing up the day's medicines from the store room.

We are surrounded by vibrant children everywhere. And it is wonderful. As we load up clinic supplies outside the Bel Aire clinic at the end of the day, the street is filled with children. Playing ball, flying kites made out of plastic bags and sticks, giggling and laughing. As we load up, they make their way to us, saying "bon soir, ca va" (good afternoon, how's it going), and asking us to take their picture. They love having their pictures taken, and laugh with delight when we show them the image. Adults have asked to have their pictures taken too.

On our drive home today, we stopped by the stadium. "The stadium" is the soccer field that was made into tent city grounds immediately after the earthquake, where much of the initial medical aid in Port-au-Prince was stationed. You likely saw footage from this at the beginning of the news coverage. It was a chaotic place. Today, there was a sense of palpable calm. The medical clinics have left the grounds, and relocated as ours has, but the stadium grounds provide a safe space for hundreds of tents, and food and water is distributed.

As we walked around the stadium grounds, a little two year old asked me to take his picture. His mother then asked me to take hers. She is not the only adult to ask. In my mind, I think of this request as asking me to 'bear witness'...to who they are, to what they have been through.

At the end of each clinic visit, I ask my patients if they have any questions. The other day I had a woman say "No, but I want to tell you about my sister". She then told me about how she had lost her sister in the earthquake. I feel empty handed as I hear these stories of grief. "How can I even begin to offer a "cure" for this hurt? For this woman, I simply placed my hand on her knee, looked into her eyes, and said "I am so sorry". She then went to our pharmacy station to pick up her medicines for trouble sleeping, headaches, stomachaches.

My last patient of today was a 19 year-old man. He had one complaint: "I wake up in the night, and I am screaming, and I don't know why." My heart breaks again, and through the interpretor, I talk about post traumatic stress in layman's terms and offer him breathing exercises and benadryl to help him get back to sleep after he wakes from these night terrors.

After hearing these stories throughout the day, my heart is rejuvenated by the smiles and unending joy of the children. I held tight onto that little hand that slipped into mine at day's end.

~Maryclaire