A world without hope.

My last day in Gonaives cracked the delicate web of emotions I have so carefully woven over the past 3 weeks. The web of fear, anxiety, frustration, exhaustion, sadness, and hurt all held together with one string...the string that kept everything together, that allowed me to get up day in and day out and face the difficult conditions...the string that makes everything worth while...that string is hope. And on my last day in Goaives, that sting began to fray...
We were told that we were leaving the compound at 6am. So we were up at 5, bags packed, ready to begin our 6 hour journey to Cap Haitian where we would be flying out of to Florida 2 days later. Not expecting anyone to be on time, we settled into reading our books at about 10am. Then noon came along, then 2pm. No word on when we were leaving, what was holding us up, or if we were leaving at all. In this aspect, Haiti could be one of the most frustrating countries I have ever been to. Don't get me wrong...people are always late in the Gambia, Zambia, Botswana, Cambodia...but in those other countries, at least they have the decency and the foresight to tell the Americans who have been waiting for 8 hours what is going on and why, and when we think we may be leaving... But no, in Haiti you wait. In fact, you are considered rude if you even think to ask what is happening and if anything will be moving any time soon.
But I suppose this long and boring day of waiting had a reason. At about 3pm, the nurse from Sweden came running to our house, breathless. "There's a sick baby", she said. "The nurses can't get an IV...come help!"
We grabbed our things and ran to the hospital. When I walked in the door I was shocked and horrified. A 6 month old baby lay unconscious on a wooden table in the doorway of the hospital, one band-aid on his hand where the nurses had attempted an IV (one!!), his mother sitting close by crying and praying, the nurses sitting across the room laughing and gossiping, and Dr Ketlie wandering aimlessly around the hospital not seeming to notice the dying child. I literally felt the anger boil up inside of me. "HOW CAN YOU SIT THERE AND DO NOTHING!!" I wanted to scream! Instead I quickly assessed the infant. He was extremely dehydrated. His skin was tenting all over...in his arms, legs, hands and feet. His eyes sunken deep into his head, his fontanel a crater in his skull. I knew he needed fluids now if he was to live. We discussed placing an interosseous line. I was about to do so when we realized that the pharmacist had gone home for the day and taken the keys to the supply cupboard. How could she just lock everything up and leave when there is a dying child on the table?! I was truly baffled by the worker's indifference, their complete lack of value of human life. It was the most defeated I have ever felt. I wanted to explode with anger, curse words flying out of my mouth, but at the same time I wanted to collapse on the floor sobbing. How could none of the work we have done over the past month have sunken in? How could these people care so little for a child's life? How is it fair that 1 in 3 children dies before they reach 5 years old in Haiti?? That this has become such a natural part of life for the people that there is no drive to even save a child who only needs IV fluids?! How could I even have expected to change an entire culture and mindset in only 4 weeks? How do you teach people to value life when all their loved ones have died, and then ask them to keep surviving?
My head was spinning...my stomach tied into knots of agony and despair. The stark realization of life for a Haitian person and what they must do to survive hit me like a ton of bricks and left me reeling. I could do one thing...I could save this child. One life...that's what I needed to focus on...one life.
I ran to Pastor Michel's house. Out of breath I quickly told him about the baby and that we needed a car now! He made some phone calls...."they are on their way" he said. I ran back to the hospital, packed the baby up in mom's arms, grabbed her stuff, and we all packed into the vehicle. The driver swiftly took us to the Cuban hospital where I stayed with the baby and Jenna ran upstairs to find Dr Oswall, who knew us well now, after taking care of Ishmael. He hurried down the stairs and ushered us into the ICU. The beds were occupied so he cleared off the wooden desk, laid the child upon it, and went to work trying to place a line. All of his veins were collapsed. Even the external jugular collapsed when touched, so placing an IV into any of them was close to impossible. Dr Oswall attempted IJs and central lines for almost 2 hours with us helping by holding the infant in distorted positions to make the veins more available. Finally after hundreds of attempts and failures and one infiltrated line into the neck, he was successful at placing a stable intra-jugular line and began to quickly resuscitate fluids into the depleted infant. He should be okay now, but he had quite a distended belly, so the doctor was going to run some tests as he administered fluids over the next few days. We thanked him again for saving us, climbed back in the car and headed back to the mission.
So many emotions came tumbling into the forefront of my mind. So much pain, loss, hurt, and despair. A culture of people who had essentially become fatalists. Who had lost the one thing humans cling to in order to survive, to give us meaning...hope. Without hope, what is it that drives us to rise each morning and go on living? Without hope how does one continue to exist? How does one teach people to value human life when it is being snatched from them everyday? When they starve and cannot find food, get sick and have no access to medicine, become dehydrated and have no available water? And then, on top of all this, the earth trembles beneath them, the sky comes down in sheets of water, and every little thing they have held on to just to survive is washed away or crushed beneath the rubble. And then we ask them to have hope....