Ayiti Toujou Bel (Haiti is Still Beautiful)

In the midst of this chaos and ugliness of violence, of need, of loss, of corruption and unfairness, I want to remind you of all the beauty of Haiti. 

Haiti is a tropical island. A jewel in the necklace of the Antilles, with mountains and ocean, jungles, plains, fruits, flowers, birds, and butterflies. There are conch shells, coral reefs replete with colorful fish, coconut palms, white sand and turquoise surf. Magnificent sunrises and sunsets paint the horizon and the Milky Way sweeps across the sky at night. 

God's Creation is glorious, still impressive through the ravages of time and conquest. 
Haiti's people are the most inspiring of this Creation, but let us also remember and appreciate the beauty of her land.

Part 3: The boy with scabies

Walter has every right to be sad. To be dismayed and withdrawn, unyielding and unresponsive as stone. His short life has already been rife with suffering, discomfort, and injustice.

It’s just not fair.

I’ve no way to answer him. I cannot reason why this three-year-old child must do without proper hygiene, nutrition, and shelter. No way to explain why he is not pampered, doted upon, even spoiled by parents, aunts, grandmothers, and babysitters. I can’t understand why my child cousins in the States have more toys than they remember and more clothes than occasion. Why they have all things soft, clean, and FDA and WHO approved.

On Thursday I swoop Walter up again.

The dirty bandage on his wrist is gone. His hands are still scabbed and oozing. In the office I tuck in his shirt and tie his shoes, petite black moccasins with laces wet from trailing the bathroom floor.

“Are you finished potty?” I ask Walter as one of his hands scratches at his head. His mouth opens and closes like that gasping fish. Like his baby brother trying and trying not to cry.

“Wi,” he vocalizes. I am impressed at how audible the syllable is.

Then his mouth closes. He leans into me. Something steady.

“Okay, let’s go wash your hands. Lave men, lave men w’!” I take his unwashed hand and draw him after me back to the wash basin.

He sticks out those scabbed sore hands. Caramel marred with red, white, and angry pink they cup over the lip of the sink, empty and expectant.

I pour water, set the soap in his palms. Together we lather in between his fingers. Then I rinse and send him on his way, holding back to refill the water bucket.

“Ale klas ou, Walter! Go to class!”

As I fill the big bucket with a smaller one I watch Walter’ progress. He trips down the hall with that toddler gait, headed towards the sunny day beyond, one hand scratching his head.

At the end of the corridor he stands before his classroom door for a moment. Then he trips back up the hall to the office and peers around the doorframe.

“Walter?” I call, still at the sink. “What are you doing?”

The office is empty besides Jonas poring over translation homework on the far bench. No arms reach out or calls welcome. Walter turns away. Shaking water from my hands I swoop down on him, bring him down the hall and nudge him into class. The last classroom before the sunshine of the courtyard.

Madame Eunide, the classroom teacher, nods at me for returning one of her charges. Her hands are overflowing these days as her assistant has started maternity leave. She’s brought another ebony-eyed baby into this world of unanswered questions and unexplained abominations.

Walter trots back to his seat at a low table among his classmates. Toddlers of various shapes and sizes sat in their wicker chairs, coloring in place. They are beautiful children all. The most beautiful in the world. Hope, delight, and a miracle each one. Somehow they are surviving; somehow they are shining still.

Walter hasn’t smiled yet. He hasn’t laughed or formed a complete sentence. But he remembers the warmth and welcome of the office. He didn’t tell me he came back to the office that morning for one more hug or gentle word. I think he did.

We can’t explain why, you or I. We can’t justify Walter’ suffering. We can’t justify the suffering of the man on the ground who prefers dust to a bed. The suffering of a baby without breath and parents without means. We can’t elucidate the disparity of where we are born.

We can confirm that poverty and privilege are not faults but opportunities. Those born in poverty can grow—if those of us in privilege give them the chance.

We can’t fix this world, you and I. Even together we cannot right all these wrongs or win the tragedies to victories. We can’t keep the babies from dying.

We can give food to the hungry and water to the thirsty we meet. We can visit the sick and comfort those who mourn. We can tie shoelaces, fill buckets, and treat wounds. We can love with abandon, in opposition to the dreadful abominations all around us.

It hurts to see all the wretchedness of the world. It helps to love in response. Even if we never learn the names of those we love. God knows, and He’s watching us to see what we will do when we encounter a man on the ground, a baby without breath, or a child with scabies. Will we pass by? Or will we run towards the sorrow with a song in our heart and Band-aids in our pockets, ready to bind up the wounds of the brokenhearted and kiss the tears of the unsmiling?

As for me, I’ll be there, in need of more Band-aids, voice lifted in tearful song.

 “When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left.

^34-36 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation. And here’s why:

I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.’

^37-40 “Then those ‘sheep’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ Then the King will say, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’

^41-43 “Then he will turn to the ‘goats,’ the ones on his left, and say, ‘Get out, worthless goats! You’re good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—

I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.’

⁴⁴ “Then those ‘goats’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn’t help?’

⁴⁵ “He will answer them, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.’

⁴⁶ “Then those ‘goats’ will be herded to their eternal doom, but the ‘sheep’ to their eternal reward.”

~Matthew 25:31-46 MSG

Part 2: The baby without breath

Walter is the latest scabies victim. He’s three years old. He doesn’t speak.

This week he came to school late with his wrist bandaged. One of the sores coating his tiny toddler hands had burst.

When I hold him on my lap his mouth moves, opening and closing like a fish. Without sound. His face is without expression.

He whispers out a “bonjou, good morning” with forceful encouragement. His short arms reach up to scratch his head. A reaction to nerves and head fungus (which plagues many of our boys.)

Walter doesn’t resist being held. He doesn’t respond either, beyond the slight rest of his butterfly hand on my encircling arm.

In the fall Walter's baby brother was in the hospital. One month old with an oxygen tube strapped to his nose. He lay on a pillow on the lap of a family member or friend come to pass the time. Perhaps he had pneumonia.

It’s Saturday afternoon. We’ve eaten and are preparing to rest through the golden hours until twilight cools us.

A man approaches the kitchen door. Walter’s father. Walter, who started school in September. The father comes with hands lifted in supplication.

“Please, will you help?” he asks.

Pastor explains the situation.

“His baby is in the hospital. He’s on oxygen. They need to pay for the tank or they won’t get another.”

The family doesn’t have the money to pay for the oxygen their child needs to breathe. If they can’t pay, the hospital will not provide more. We’ve seen this before with Adeline, our asthmatic miracle.

Children die every day.

Not today.

“You don’t say no to a sick baby,” Beverly and I agree upstairs. We gather some funds and get in the car. We want to see this baby for ourselves. To pray for him.

We drive to the public hospital, just a kilometer or two down the street. We step up to the pediatric ward, another green and white concrete building like all those on the gated hospital campus.

The first baby is at reception. He’s being weighed. We pass the desk. Pass a room of cries. Enter a room of quiet.

What I see most is the eyes. Eyes. Eyes too big for faces. Eyes like wells. Wells deep with all the suffering and loss of the world.

Bodies are shrunken. The floors and walls are bare. The few cribs are shabby. Some folding chairs support slumped figures of the waiting.

No light. There’s no electricity right now, in this golden time before dark.

In the quiet room is Walter’s baby brother. He is impossibly beautiful. He’s rasping.

His mouth opens and closes, his tongue unfurls and curls back in. His brow puckers. He tries to cry. He tries to wriggle out of this breathing tube. Wriggle out of this place.

There are many babies here. Each ones reads a tragedy. Babies are miracles. They are hope and delight. Sick and suffering babies are an abomination. Visible proof of the wretchedness of this world. Shattered pieces of beautiful intention.

Here we are. Beverly, Pastor, Rose, and I. We are the most prosperous visitors this room has seen all day. And perhaps we are the most horrified.

Soon the baby is on my lap. He has woolly black hair, quarter-round ebony eyes, waving fists, unfurling tongue, and breathing tube. The question of why is far heavier than he and his pillow.

We never get his name. Shadows deepen as dusk falls. There is still no light. No electricity to brighten this place. I hold him on my lap, singing softly.

“Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.” I stare down at him, his brow continuing to crinkle and smooth as he whimpers then nearly smiles. “Jezi renmen tout timoun yo, tout timoun ki sou late….”

The baby’s large green oxygen tank resembles a submarine. A submarine at war with illness as the angels are at war with demons. Here there are demons of despair, of affliction, of death. They take a beating as we sing and pray, the four of us joining hands with the waiting family and friends surrounding the baby on his pillow in my lap.

Then Pastor is at the door although Rose would stay and talk. A woman enters, sweating, bag of food clutched in her hand. This is Mama. She’s been out for supplies.

Beverly says, “Okay, Rachelle. Let go of the baby.” I awkwardly pass him and the pillow to Mama, kiss his minute crinkled forehead one more time.

“Goodbye, Baby.”

Mama takes the baby up, presses him to her shoulder, the oxygen tube snaking around, stuck between them. An unwelcome interference. An abomination.

We leave, trooping out with our privilege. We will return to a place of cleanliness, of food, water, light, and medicine. A place with no sick babies.

We leave the babies with their tragic eyes in the darkened room. Babies, guardians, and congregants remain in uncongenial positions. Perhaps they think if they act like stone long enough they might become like it. Stone doesn’t mourn.

“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD to display His splendor.” ~ Isaiah 61:1-3 NIV

Part 1: The man on the ground

Latest in the list of grievances is the man at the hospital. Lying on his side in the dirt between the maternity and pediatric wards. Bare feet rest atop each other. He eats the dust.

Everyone passes by.

No one comments. No one assists.

Then we arrive. And Rose stops.

“Hello. How are you?” she asks, bending down to speak to him on the ground. “What’s your name? What’s wrong?”

His mouth moves. I can’t hear the answers. They’re mumbled, jumbled.

A crowd gathers. Those standing on the ramp to Pediatrics lean in. Spectator sporting at its best. Or worst.

Some of the onlookers guffaw. One woman’s face splits with a smile resembling a leer. One man comes alongside Rose, hands behind his back, leaning in and over the man on the ground. Looking down at him.

Beverly and I stand off to the side. Looking on. At a loss in the face of this loss, this lack.

We shake our heads.

“Does he need water?” Beverly asks.

“W’ap bwe dlo? Will you drink water?” one of the onlookers asks.

The man agrees.

She hands him a water sache and he squeezes it empty in a gulp or two. Like dust absorbing moisture.

I want to take him up. Dust him off. Tuck him into a clean bed with crisp sheets. Tuck an IV in his arm and watch the nutrients flow down into his stick-thin legs.

Worse than the dust around him, the emaciation of his limbs, is the solitude. The abandonment. He is alone.

“Who brought you here? Where are you from?” Rose asks. “Where is your family?”

There is no one.

No one to take hold of his hand, assure him. Ease him into bed and care.

We go to the director’s office—the boss of the hospital. He frequently consults for us, prescribes medicine, advises.

He shakes his head and smiles when we speak of the man on the ground.

“We’ve done what we can,” he says.

He tells us the man has been here a few days. The staff tried to take care of him. They put him in bed. He went back to the earth, laid himself back down in the dust. He’s ill. No one knows how to care for him.

“We’re going to get him up, give him clothes, and bring him to the poor house,” the director tells us. He doesn’t know more about mental illness. The only word for that here is “crazy.”

The director’s shoulders shrug under their brown corduroy. His suit jacket fits over a button down, with fitted slacks and polished shoes. His manicured hands lift.

I read the plea for absolution in every gesture.

He smiles with well-rounded cheeks and groomed chin.

The man on the ground is not a concern. Soon he’ll be off the hospital campus.

“I’m glad you have a plan,” Beverly tells the director as we turn to go. “We’ll see you soon. Another student has scabies!”

She and Rose speak briefly of our latest discovered scabies victim; several of our students now are afflicted with the skin parasites.

“So we’ll see you on Friday with Woobins,” Beverly says.

Thank you and goodbye.

As we exit the building we can see between the maternity and pediatric wards. The crowd is dispersed. The man on the ground is gone.

“Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.” ~ Isaiah 58:6-9 NIV