Final Report from the Caribbean

Here’s the 8th and final report from photographers Stephen M. Katz and Chris Tyree, who have been in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, reporting on PFP’s work in this area of the world.
__________________________________

“What do I tell you about our day yesterday – Saturday, March 1? I haven’t even processed it all myself. It was the type of day that fuels nightmares.

Do I tell you about the man who sat moaning in the dark recesses of the male ward at the public hospital? How the room smelt so badly that I nearly vomited? How do I describe what I saw as I walked closer? His knees pinched together as he sat on the edge of the bed, his back turned toward the room. His legs as skinny as a boys. He was certainly in his early 50’s. One foot planted on the rough cement floor next to a puddle of blood and what looked like the grease left in a pan a half-hour after cooking bacon. His other foot? Gone from the shin down. Exposed bone and tendons dripping. His moans echoed those I could hear pounding in my own head.

Or do I tell you about the two older women toiling at the corner of unnamed roads in the heart of one of Port au Prince’s favellas? One with a shovel, the other a broom with bristles matted together with mud. The mound of garbage they were consolidating into a pile was waist deep and as long as a school bus. As the sprawl of the trash tumbled onto the sidewalk, those passing by looked as if the were negotiating a snowdrift. Flies fogged the air around them. But holding back the trash flowing through the gutters of Port au Prince is like holding back a river with your bare hands.

Maybe I should write about the woman placed in solitary confinement at the mental hospital lit only by light from the adjacent room sneaking in through soda can-sized holes cut in at the top of the cement walls. The kind of padlock one might use to secure the gate at a used car lot sealed the door. How do I describe her screams? Piercing? Haunting? Desperate? All and more. Need I describe the stink of urine that wafted from the 10-inch by 10-inch hatch in the door, the kind you see in movies through which the secret password is usually spoken? Can I make you feel the unease I felt when she began kicking at the metal door?

What about all the children? At St. Vincent’s, where we returned for a second day, and those at the home run by nuns on the outskirts of town for severely mentally handicapped kids. Scores of them. Do I describe one or two or forty? Suffice it to say that you would want to take any of them home with you. All of them if you could.

Perhaps I could tell you about the little boy who I can’t get out of my head. Thousands of them dart through the market places just like him every day. This day this one lay motionless in a metal crib in the corner of the children’s burn ward at the public hospital. Ten days earlier in the market, scalding water left deep second-degree burns on 70% of his body. Without the money to pay for proper care, sepsis set in. The infection ravaged his body and now his family could do little more than keep vigil around the toddler’s bloated body. Confused, helpless eyes welled with tears. And then the shallow rise and fall of the boy’s chest stopped. His mother knew immediately that her baby lost the fight and collapsed. Wedged in the corner, she wailed uncontrollably. Chris’s head fell into his folded arms that rested on the next crib over. Surely he was thinking of his own 3-year-old boy Jack.

I regret the fact that I can’t truly tell you about any of these things. To give them the full impact they deserve. So I will simply have to show you.

Chris and I are now on our way home. I can’t wait to see my family and friends. To hold them a bit tighter and make sure I tell them how much I do love them and appreciate all their support. I can’t wait to lie in my own bed with my dog Indi and curl up in a ball. Chris will surely be doing the same with Jack. Still Chris and I have a lot of work ahead of us. Thousands of photographs to edit and hours of video to comb through. But if it means we will be able to communicate to you what we saw – that which cannot be expressed in words alone – we will gladly spend the tens of hours it will take to produce the material. All I ask of you is to be patient and stay tuned. I promise you won’t be disappointed. In the meantime, look kindly upon those in your lives who are in need. Do what you can, in your own way, to make someone’s suffering a bit less. And please support Physicians For Peace so they can do the same.”

Report from the Caribbean – Day 7

Photographers Stephen M. Katz and Chris Tyree continue their reporting from the Caribbean, where they are now in Haiti.
______________________________________

“Imagine the government of the United States introducing a bill to raise the minimum wage 114%. Corporate CEO’s and industry leaders would pitch fits on news talk shows. Lobbyists would wear moat-like pathways between congressional offices. Threats of higher prices for everything would spark panic among consumers.

Now imagine being a common laborer where the minimum wage is two dollars. A day. That’s right – 10 dollars a week, 40 dollars a month, 480 dollars a year. Welcome to Haiti. The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Port au Prince is chaos on speed. Few places you go don’t smell of garbage or urine or pollution. Roadways are blocked by mounds of trash three feet high or throngs of people selling everything from raw sugar cane to used pants to scraps of metal.

Ramon, Chris and I arrived in Port au Prince this morning – Friday, March 1 – and went straight to St. Vincent’s, an orphanage/orthopedics clinic/school for handicapped children/child social services. And that is the way many of these aid centers are – slashes. There is so much need in Haiti that nearly any facility opened to those less fortunate – 95% of the population – is completely overwhelmed. At St. Vincent’s blind children wander the hallways, their eyes clouded over the way my 96-year-old grandmother’s look. Kids missing an arm or a leg or both are helped down long narrow hallways painted a mossy green by other children. They are all brothers and sisters. Rooms full of mute teens wave uncontrollably to strange white faces pointing cameras.

When the recess bell rang, half of the children raced to the cement courtyard. They stood around in their blue and white-checkered shirts eating bits of bread and drinking juice from plastic bags. There was no kickball or soccer or jump rope. Those activities are far too luxurious. The other half remained in the classrooms – too much trouble negotiating the dark cement stairways to simply stand around somewhere else.

One little boy named Joseph sat in the middle of the third classroom on the second floor. Some of the other children were playing with a set of blocks. They were pink. Most of the paint had chipped off. Joseph just sat there. Two classmates darted past him in a game of tag. Still, Joseph remained motionless, a cone for the others to races around. A little girl tried to coax Joseph to play with her. He wouldn’t. When the bell rang to mark the end of recess though, Joseph sprang up to his knees exposing his twisted lower legs and feet. Dragging them behind him, he scurried to his desk where he sat some more. Motionless.

Today, many of the students were learning math. Chalkboards reminiscent of the 1930’s were filled with addition and multiplication problems. Faded equations from the prior lesson still visible. No money for erasers. Some children were clearly engaged in the class. Others sat in the corners – some in cold, steel wheelchairs, some in wooden seats with mismatched legs – staring off. Daydreaming? What was there to dream of?

The lucky ones leave at the end of the day, going home to their families, many of whom live in old shipping containers down in the favela. The rest live in rooms at St. Vincent’s – seas of rusty bunk beds – only to wake up the next morning in the same terrible place.

When I asked the director what it was that St. Vincent’s needed from PFP he responded without hesitation, “Everything.”