Friday, July 16, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Justin
Justin, you waited all day Friday for me to come visit you in the orphanage and bring you your machine, a toy car that beeps, plays music, and spins its wheels on its own. I came Friday afternoon, like I said I would but I had no car in my hand.
I said, “I’m sorry but Shawn left early today and I don’t have keys to the toy room so I couldn’t bring it. The smile you spread across your entire face when I walked in waned as you stared at my words. Watching a little bit of the excitement you have everyday drain melted my heart.
It was one of the “Should have, could have, wish I would have” moments. Should have gotten the car in the morning just to be sure I could bring it. Could have told Shawn I was going to play with you and asked if he would be there to get the toy later. Wish I would have brought your favorite toy with me—a small thing capable of bringing irreplaceable pleasure—to meet your smile and clapping hands.
Justin, I was ready for you to continue being disappointed for the rest of our visit, to sulk while Luvince and Reese, who don’t have to sit in a wheelchair, chased me around kicking the soccer ball. But, you raised your eyebrows, looked up at me and suggested, “Monday?”
I nodded firmly. “I’ll bring the machine on Monday.” Then, you smiled again. You watched me play with your friends and then you said, “Litto?” You wanted to see the hound with the bark that terrifies and exhilarates you at the same time who sleeps, runs, and eats in the sunny yard outside the surgery ward. I said, “Yes! We can go see Litto!” Something I could do for you. You clapped your hands as I pushed you to see him.
Justin, I want to know where you get the strength to smile even though cerebral palsy makes your legs like sandbags, too heavy for you to lift, and your mouth move slowly like wet clay when you talk.
Is it because 13-years of pain is all you have known that you never complain?
Why aren’t you bitter like the grapefruits on the trees outside that the wind shakes off before they have the chance to ripen?
When your friend and playmate—the 6-year old who can always understand the communications you struggle to coordinate from your mouth muscles—left you and the orphanage to live with a foster family, the only person who could tell you were sad was your physical therapist. She only knew because after working with her you wanted to stay inside alone instead of watching what happens outside the orphanage from your normal place under the shade of a lime tree that reaches its arms over the orphanage porch.
How do you wait and watch all day? What do you notice as you watch families enter and exit patient rooms across from your home in Kai Mira? Do you see tears when patients pass away? Are you bored of watching doctors and nurses stick needles in peoples wrist vanes to drip salty or sugary water into their blood?
How do you continue to smile through the frustration of my failure to understand you when you try to tell me what is clear in your head but lags on your tongue: you are slipping in your chair?
What do you think about when you can’t lift yourself up? You understood when I couldn’t move fast enough as you slid to the floor. You laughed when you hit the cement because you knew I would never let you fall on purpose. You knew that if you smiled, my face looking at you would also smile instead of gasping.
Justin, if you didn’t laugh, didn’t keep trying to form words to tell me what you need, didn’t reach your neck over the back of your wheel chair to share your huge smile with me when you sense that I am behind you, didn’t sit and let your eyes devour everything in their reach as you stare outside the orphanage, didn’t wiggle your entire body with laughter when I put the “machine” in your hands, didn’t plant joy in the form of smiles and cuddles in me when I visit you, what would I do?
I said, “I’m sorry but Shawn left early today and I don’t have keys to the toy room so I couldn’t bring it. The smile you spread across your entire face when I walked in waned as you stared at my words. Watching a little bit of the excitement you have everyday drain melted my heart.
It was one of the “Should have, could have, wish I would have” moments. Should have gotten the car in the morning just to be sure I could bring it. Could have told Shawn I was going to play with you and asked if he would be there to get the toy later. Wish I would have brought your favorite toy with me—a small thing capable of bringing irreplaceable pleasure—to meet your smile and clapping hands.
Justin, I was ready for you to continue being disappointed for the rest of our visit, to sulk while Luvince and Reese, who don’t have to sit in a wheelchair, chased me around kicking the soccer ball. But, you raised your eyebrows, looked up at me and suggested, “Monday?”
I nodded firmly. “I’ll bring the machine on Monday.” Then, you smiled again. You watched me play with your friends and then you said, “Litto?” You wanted to see the hound with the bark that terrifies and exhilarates you at the same time who sleeps, runs, and eats in the sunny yard outside the surgery ward. I said, “Yes! We can go see Litto!” Something I could do for you. You clapped your hands as I pushed you to see him.
Justin, I want to know where you get the strength to smile even though cerebral palsy makes your legs like sandbags, too heavy for you to lift, and your mouth move slowly like wet clay when you talk.
Is it because 13-years of pain is all you have known that you never complain?
Why aren’t you bitter like the grapefruits on the trees outside that the wind shakes off before they have the chance to ripen?
When your friend and playmate—the 6-year old who can always understand the communications you struggle to coordinate from your mouth muscles—left you and the orphanage to live with a foster family, the only person who could tell you were sad was your physical therapist. She only knew because after working with her you wanted to stay inside alone instead of watching what happens outside the orphanage from your normal place under the shade of a lime tree that reaches its arms over the orphanage porch.
How do you wait and watch all day? What do you notice as you watch families enter and exit patient rooms across from your home in Kai Mira? Do you see tears when patients pass away? Are you bored of watching doctors and nurses stick needles in peoples wrist vanes to drip salty or sugary water into their blood?
How do you continue to smile through the frustration of my failure to understand you when you try to tell me what is clear in your head but lags on your tongue: you are slipping in your chair?
What do you think about when you can’t lift yourself up? You understood when I couldn’t move fast enough as you slid to the floor. You laughed when you hit the cement because you knew I would never let you fall on purpose. You knew that if you smiled, my face looking at you would also smile instead of gasping.
Justin, if you didn’t laugh, didn’t keep trying to form words to tell me what you need, didn’t reach your neck over the back of your wheel chair to share your huge smile with me when you sense that I am behind you, didn’t sit and let your eyes devour everything in their reach as you stare outside the orphanage, didn’t wiggle your entire body with laughter when I put the “machine” in your hands, didn’t plant joy in the form of smiles and cuddles in me when I visit you, what would I do?
Monday, July 12, 2010
Want to Smell Haiti?
You breath in gray dust—powdered pebbles that have mixed with exhaust from a truck whizzing by, sinking under the weight of 30 people balancing baskets full of plantain on their heads, sitting on 100 pound bags of rice, and holding sugar cane. After the dust settles, dry cow dung that blew into the air from the side of the road stays in your nose like the guest who doesn't realize when the party is over.
You are breathing in lemon zest air on top of one of the hundred leafy mountain heads that stares down at the ocean around Hispaniola. The air is purified water frozen into an ice cube, you breathe some and your lungs take twice their share, stretching their maximum capacity like a 6-year old boy sitting down to his favorite meal with fruit punch followed by birthday cake. Mango leafs exhale sugary oxygen into your nostrils and you devour it. If your sense of smell is very acute, you might catch one or two goat hairs in the leafy coolness.
Trash melts into charcoal, puffing clouds of rotten campfire into your nasal canals. You breathe a pig rolling in waste, his slobber turning to steam in the heat of the sun’s smolder; motionless brown water under a bridge made of dirt, painting misty air with fumes of human feces.
It is the crusty crisping of plantain slices and accra bubbling in hot yellow oil, flipping under the metal scooper in the right hand of a sweating woman. Her dress strap slipped off her left shoulder that supports a full head of black frazzles belonging to her naked baby. Inside your nose burns when green chilies in the accra batter spit into the oil’s hot breath.
The sun sizzles your skin red till it wears the scent of toast and tanning beds. Sweat evaporates from your shirt leaving old sneaker perfume on your chest and in between your shoulder blades.
It is salt water soaked fish splashing sea urchin body odor around the edges of the moist wood boat that rocks you through a chorus of ocean ripples singing, "Shh” as you travel from sand grains to banana trees on an Island that appears the size of a cupcake sprinkle on the map of Haiti.
You are breathing in lemon zest air on top of one of the hundred leafy mountain heads that stares down at the ocean around Hispaniola. The air is purified water frozen into an ice cube, you breathe some and your lungs take twice their share, stretching their maximum capacity like a 6-year old boy sitting down to his favorite meal with fruit punch followed by birthday cake. Mango leafs exhale sugary oxygen into your nostrils and you devour it. If your sense of smell is very acute, you might catch one or two goat hairs in the leafy coolness.
Trash melts into charcoal, puffing clouds of rotten campfire into your nasal canals. You breathe a pig rolling in waste, his slobber turning to steam in the heat of the sun’s smolder; motionless brown water under a bridge made of dirt, painting misty air with fumes of human feces.
It is the crusty crisping of plantain slices and accra bubbling in hot yellow oil, flipping under the metal scooper in the right hand of a sweating woman. Her dress strap slipped off her left shoulder that supports a full head of black frazzles belonging to her naked baby. Inside your nose burns when green chilies in the accra batter spit into the oil’s hot breath.
The sun sizzles your skin red till it wears the scent of toast and tanning beds. Sweat evaporates from your shirt leaving old sneaker perfume on your chest and in between your shoulder blades.
It is salt water soaked fish splashing sea urchin body odor around the edges of the moist wood boat that rocks you through a chorus of ocean ripples singing, "Shh” as you travel from sand grains to banana trees on an Island that appears the size of a cupcake sprinkle on the map of Haiti.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Broken
The little boy, the one who screamed, “Please don’t kill me!” while we put a cast on his broken arm came back on July 6th. We put the cast on June 1st.
The doctor said, “Come back in 15 days so we can make sure it is taking well.” He wrote, “Rendez-vous dans 15 jours” in the chart. They made an appointment:” June 16th between 9am and 4pm Hopital Bon Samaritan.” They waited till today.
When my eyes took in his face, I asked myself, “Was it his arm that I held at 90 degrees while Dr. Belanger wrapped it in wet plaster? His defining feature, he lifts his right eyebrow when he smiles making it seem like he isn’t sure why he is happy, answered my question. My brain flashed: “How is his arm?” “Did he grow to like his terrifying cast?” “Why didn’t he come back sooner?” “Does he remember it?” Then, I scanned his body in a pattern that surprised me. I was looking at him to analyze his condition, not to take in the toddler pattering in circles or laugh at the sudden certainty of children movements, the way they stand still staring and then make a choppy motion as if their motor nerves fire the instant they think of something to do.
I wasn’t satisfied. His cast, if it is accurate to describe what looks like white rag used as a golden retriever’s chew toy that way, was soft and shorter. Sure, white things get dirty. The other day, I looked down at my arm after I ran my white sleeve across my forehead to keep hot drops from falling in my eyes, and it was gray. There is dust and dirt in the oven air here. The messy wasn’t what upset me. We had wrapped his arm from knuckles to armpit and now his cast barely reached past his elbow. I looked up at his Mamman. She was standing with both her eyebrows raised. They told me, “I’m either exhausted or bored.”
Dr. Belanger sent the little girl who had been sitting in front of him and her father to the pharmacy with a prescription for Calmine lotion to treat her sarcoptosis (Scabes) infection. Then the mother walked up to him.
“Doctor, can you take the cast off today?”
He looked up and squinted, obviously thinking, ‘Which patient is this?’
“Where is your chart?” He said. “And the X-ray from the day of the fracture?”
“I don’t know. No one gave me anything, but you saw him so can you just take it off?”
“Yes, but, I need to know when I put it on, and we need an X-ray to see if his bones took to the cast and healed.”
“Another X-ray?” She rolled her eyes.
Dr. Belanger was getting frustrated. “Yes.”
She left dragging her son by the hand. I watched them go and worried about his arm.
After lunch, I sat down with Dr. Felix at one of the three desks the doctors on service in pediatrics use to see patients. In the pediatric ward, there are no doors and no curtains. The physicians call a name from their stacks of charts and the children walk up with their parents. Each child sits on a stool in front of the desk and the doctor examines him. There is a bed at the end of the room that the doctors use if they need to examine a patient lying down. When Dr. Belanger, Dr. St. Fleure and Dr. Felix have patients in front of them, I can hear all three consultations at once. Most of the time, I am too absorbed in helping with the patient sitting nearest me, but when the visit ends and we wait for the next person, my eyes and ears stroll the room.
The Manman walked in with an X-ray in one hand and her eye-brow raising son’s fingers squeezing the other. I watched Dr. Belanger unfold it and attach it to the light board to examine it. I sucked my tongue against the roof of my mouth and breathed horror into my throat. It was the view of his arm that is taken when he places his forearm on the table with his palm up that made me cringe. In that position, the two bones of the forearm, the radius and ulna, should be almost parallel to each other and they shouldn’t touch. His were in a long, slender “X.” Even worse, there was still a black line breaking the white line of his radius bone on the X-ray. I looked at his now cast-free arm. The middle of his forearm was arced like a boomerang.
I heard Dr. Belanger say, “What did you do with his arm while it was healing? When did we place the cast?”
She said, “We came at the beginning of June.”
Dr. Belanger said, “You were supposed to come in 15 days! So we could make sure this,” he waved a hand in the direction of the boy’s arm “didn’t happen!”
I moved my gaze away from the crooked arm to the mother and she was staring at me. It was then that I realized what my face must have been doing. I had been too absorbed in frustration and shock to filter the conversion of my emotions into facial expressions. I had been gaping, at his arm, biting my lip, pushing my two eyebrows together and that told her things were bad.
She looked hurt and she started defending. “You said to come back July 15th. I’m early.”
He stood up and walked out of the room. She stood, I sat, and her son played with a shred of paper he found on the floor between us. Five minutes later, Dr. Belanger walked holding the yellow 5 by 7 index cards stapled together to make the boy’s file. I walked over to read them with him. The boy’s name was Jerome and he was 5-years old.
“Here, it says it!” Dr. Belanger told me. “I wrote that I made them an appointment to come back the 16th of June.” He showed the chart to the mother. She looked and said nothing.
I knew that between Dr. Belanger’s face and mine, there was enough information for her to realize that the 5-year old arm for which she had been responsible was worse than when we put the cast on it.
She sat down and started a type of pout. Mothers sitting in the benches waiting their turns to walk little ones to a doctor’s desk were staring judgement at her. I was looking at her, thinking, ‘Even if it is an honest mistake, it hurt him and how did his cast end up like that?’ She started to act like my little sister 14 years ago when our Mom made her sit in a chair for fifteen minutes because she slapped me in response to my teasing. She was ashamed and embarrassed. I started to look away, but little Jerome had started pulling her shirt. I thought, ‘Maybe he’s hungry since it is lunch time.’ She was squinting tears. “Stop!” she yelled. He kept pulling. She hit him 3 times saying “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" With that, I was indignant. She was hitting him because she was embarrassed, because she was sad. the way I hit a pillow when I was 11-years old and found out my parents were going to divorce. She was supposed to be the grownup, to protect him. He bit her hand. She raised her arm to hit him again and a mother waiting with her daughter in her lap said, “Pa fe sa,” (Don’t do that) in a commanding tone. Two other female voices added, “He’s probably tired” “Has he eaten yet?”
Dr. Belanger was writing a referral to the orthopedic specialist in Cap Haitian. The mother’s face was pale. I focused on the note to avoid watching her. After Dr. Belanger scribbled his signature, I felt her staring at me and I met her eyes. He handed her the note, she took it and walked out with her son.
The doctor said, “Come back in 15 days so we can make sure it is taking well.” He wrote, “Rendez-vous dans 15 jours” in the chart. They made an appointment:” June 16th between 9am and 4pm Hopital Bon Samaritan.” They waited till today.
When my eyes took in his face, I asked myself, “Was it his arm that I held at 90 degrees while Dr. Belanger wrapped it in wet plaster? His defining feature, he lifts his right eyebrow when he smiles making it seem like he isn’t sure why he is happy, answered my question. My brain flashed: “How is his arm?” “Did he grow to like his terrifying cast?” “Why didn’t he come back sooner?” “Does he remember it?” Then, I scanned his body in a pattern that surprised me. I was looking at him to analyze his condition, not to take in the toddler pattering in circles or laugh at the sudden certainty of children movements, the way they stand still staring and then make a choppy motion as if their motor nerves fire the instant they think of something to do.
I wasn’t satisfied. His cast, if it is accurate to describe what looks like white rag used as a golden retriever’s chew toy that way, was soft and shorter. Sure, white things get dirty. The other day, I looked down at my arm after I ran my white sleeve across my forehead to keep hot drops from falling in my eyes, and it was gray. There is dust and dirt in the oven air here. The messy wasn’t what upset me. We had wrapped his arm from knuckles to armpit and now his cast barely reached past his elbow. I looked up at his Mamman. She was standing with both her eyebrows raised. They told me, “I’m either exhausted or bored.”
Dr. Belanger sent the little girl who had been sitting in front of him and her father to the pharmacy with a prescription for Calmine lotion to treat her sarcoptosis (Scabes) infection. Then the mother walked up to him.
“Doctor, can you take the cast off today?”
He looked up and squinted, obviously thinking, ‘Which patient is this?’
“Where is your chart?” He said. “And the X-ray from the day of the fracture?”
“I don’t know. No one gave me anything, but you saw him so can you just take it off?”
“Yes, but, I need to know when I put it on, and we need an X-ray to see if his bones took to the cast and healed.”
“Another X-ray?” She rolled her eyes.
Dr. Belanger was getting frustrated. “Yes.”
She left dragging her son by the hand. I watched them go and worried about his arm.
After lunch, I sat down with Dr. Felix at one of the three desks the doctors on service in pediatrics use to see patients. In the pediatric ward, there are no doors and no curtains. The physicians call a name from their stacks of charts and the children walk up with their parents. Each child sits on a stool in front of the desk and the doctor examines him. There is a bed at the end of the room that the doctors use if they need to examine a patient lying down. When Dr. Belanger, Dr. St. Fleure and Dr. Felix have patients in front of them, I can hear all three consultations at once. Most of the time, I am too absorbed in helping with the patient sitting nearest me, but when the visit ends and we wait for the next person, my eyes and ears stroll the room.
The Manman walked in with an X-ray in one hand and her eye-brow raising son’s fingers squeezing the other. I watched Dr. Belanger unfold it and attach it to the light board to examine it. I sucked my tongue against the roof of my mouth and breathed horror into my throat. It was the view of his arm that is taken when he places his forearm on the table with his palm up that made me cringe. In that position, the two bones of the forearm, the radius and ulna, should be almost parallel to each other and they shouldn’t touch. His were in a long, slender “X.” Even worse, there was still a black line breaking the white line of his radius bone on the X-ray. I looked at his now cast-free arm. The middle of his forearm was arced like a boomerang.
I heard Dr. Belanger say, “What did you do with his arm while it was healing? When did we place the cast?”
She said, “We came at the beginning of June.”
Dr. Belanger said, “You were supposed to come in 15 days! So we could make sure this,” he waved a hand in the direction of the boy’s arm “didn’t happen!”
I moved my gaze away from the crooked arm to the mother and she was staring at me. It was then that I realized what my face must have been doing. I had been too absorbed in frustration and shock to filter the conversion of my emotions into facial expressions. I had been gaping, at his arm, biting my lip, pushing my two eyebrows together and that told her things were bad.
She looked hurt and she started defending. “You said to come back July 15th. I’m early.”
He stood up and walked out of the room. She stood, I sat, and her son played with a shred of paper he found on the floor between us. Five minutes later, Dr. Belanger walked holding the yellow 5 by 7 index cards stapled together to make the boy’s file. I walked over to read them with him. The boy’s name was Jerome and he was 5-years old.
“Here, it says it!” Dr. Belanger told me. “I wrote that I made them an appointment to come back the 16th of June.” He showed the chart to the mother. She looked and said nothing.
I knew that between Dr. Belanger’s face and mine, there was enough information for her to realize that the 5-year old arm for which she had been responsible was worse than when we put the cast on it.
She sat down and started a type of pout. Mothers sitting in the benches waiting their turns to walk little ones to a doctor’s desk were staring judgement at her. I was looking at her, thinking, ‘Even if it is an honest mistake, it hurt him and how did his cast end up like that?’ She started to act like my little sister 14 years ago when our Mom made her sit in a chair for fifteen minutes because she slapped me in response to my teasing. She was ashamed and embarrassed. I started to look away, but little Jerome had started pulling her shirt. I thought, ‘Maybe he’s hungry since it is lunch time.’ She was squinting tears. “Stop!” she yelled. He kept pulling. She hit him 3 times saying “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" With that, I was indignant. She was hitting him because she was embarrassed, because she was sad. the way I hit a pillow when I was 11-years old and found out my parents were going to divorce. She was supposed to be the grownup, to protect him. He bit her hand. She raised her arm to hit him again and a mother waiting with her daughter in her lap said, “Pa fe sa,” (Don’t do that) in a commanding tone. Two other female voices added, “He’s probably tired” “Has he eaten yet?”
Dr. Belanger was writing a referral to the orthopedic specialist in Cap Haitian. The mother’s face was pale. I focused on the note to avoid watching her. After Dr. Belanger scribbled his signature, I felt her staring at me and I met her eyes. He handed her the note, she took it and walked out with her son.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Timoun III: Here, the children teach me. . .
Not to be shy to throw words out in a language I don't speak so I can get a new person's attention.
That most people sense what you are searching for, who you like, and when you are genuine, but only children will chatter that truth into your ears because "mind your own business" doesn't count if your smile is wide enough to make everyone's business your business and if it is more fun not to "mind" anything
That if you open your eyes wide enough to see the whole world but only look into one set of eyes, slide a your tiny hand lightly into theirs, and let your shoulders dance you will get a hug.
That it completely normal to be reenacting a motorcycle accident one minute--violently flinging your body, whirling in circles and screaming "Whizz," "Pzz" and "WAP" noises--and doze off in the grass the next.
That if I want something, ask for it. If the answer is, "No" shrug and smile.
That a hand in mine is security.
That if a tiny face thinks something is funny enough to giggle over then it is.
That the body warmth of a Mamie's arm knot is the best commodity.
That if I trip on my own dignity, get mud all over my legs, scrape my elbow on plant spines, rip running shorts on tree bark, skin my knees on gravel and blow snot into toilet paper, I won't die.
That I can see a boat fly over a bridge, a worm swallow a goat whole, an airplane rain ripe bananas, a flower turn into a butterfly, and a spider roar like a lion.
That I can mix mango juice with salty beef stew in my mouth, just to see how it tastes, then announce to everyone, "It was gross but I swallowed it because Sara said I can't spit food into my juice."
That at 6:30pm while I am sitting at the table, holding a fork over a plate of rice, beans and fish, there are five billion things I can talk about, look at, and point to that have nothing to do eating.
That at 7:20pm when I my grownup friends say I will have to eat alone if I don't finish my food soon, I can shovel the entire plate into my mouth in 10 minutes.
That the best place to hide is behind a Papa's leg.
That the prettiest view of Haiti is from a seat on top of someone else's shoulders.
That people are born knowing how to dance but they forget how because they learn to get nervous instead.
That the best person to emulate is the most ridiculous one.
That if you tell someone what they are good at, they will do it better.
That a Blan with blue eyes must have more toys than anyone in the world.
That it is terrifying when someone in scrubs with a stethoscope hanging from his neck wraps my bent arm in plaster because he could be trying to turn me into the Egyptian mummy I learned about at school.
To smile; to ask questions about the answers to questions I just asked; to talk till my breath runs out, put my hands on my knees, drop my head, gasp some breaths and then talk some more; to fight for the attention of grownups as if my livelihood depended on it.
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