A Tour of Port au Prince
On our way from the airport to Bernard Mevs Hospital, we had a brief introduction to Port au Prince. But the next day we were scheduled for a formal tour given by a local.
Five therapists were loaded into a dirty SUV. We left the gates of our hospital grounds for a formal tour of the city, cameras in hand. We were immediately instructed to maintain the cameras within the vehicle at all times, as on the last tour a camera was stolen right out of someone’s hand.
One of our first stops was the Cathedral of our Lady of the Assumption. The Cathedral had been a longstanding building in Port au Prince, built in 1884. I had seen photos of this majestic church before I left for Haiti. To see its current state, and lack of reconstruction, was unnerving.
Our next stop was The Palace. I thought of all buildings, perhaps the government building would be undergoing construction, even as a symbol of the country rebuilding itself. What we saw was far from that.
Directly across the street from the gated palace was a sprawling tent camp. Dotted all over the city were tent camps like this one, with seemingly no space between each tent. People congregated on the streets, outside the tents, in the tents. We did not go into the camps, but to imagine the living conditions within the depths of the camps without proper sanitation , drainage, and waste removal was an overwhelming thought. How could the Haitians live like this?
And what happens during the next tropical storm or hurricane? What happens when your only form of shelter is a flimsy tent?
We drove down streets covered in rubble, with the SUV riding up on the side of the rubble just to pass through the street. We drove past crumbled buildings, hotels turned into one story pancakes, people digging through the rubble with their bare hands. We visited the former UN, and Sean Penn’s tent camp. We saw signs written in English begging for water, food, and a doctor.
What we didn’t see were construction equipment. The American Red Cross. Why, after 6 months, did it look like this? Why were people living in conditions unbelievable, deplorable, and beyond worse then I had ever imagined from our news back home?
Why?
How does a country so poor rebuild after such an event?
We hardly spoke on our tour. We hardly spoke when we returned. I could not process everything I had seen, and I could not help repeating the question Why.
I knew it was a question I could not answer. All I knew was at that moment, I had a useful skill. I was a physical therapist, and although I could not rebuild a country or its people, I could try to help one person at a time.
So after the tour, I went to work doing just that, the thing I know best. I took a deep breath, and entered the pediatric “tent” where Gina and I would spend the next seven days, ready to work.
Next up, life at the hospital.
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