Some Holiday Thoughts on Simple Things

NEWS, the day following our meeting with the medecin, on the condition of the sick woman is that she is recovering and back in her own home! It was not cholera! While other cases have been reported to our North, in the town of Ganthier, the village has been spared. There is raging debate in the Haitian press about making the UN take responsibility for releasing this scurge upon the island. A report in the New England Journal of Medicine backs up the assertion that the strain is of a particular type (extremely deadly) and had to have been introduced. Some of the post primary election protests clearly are venting anger at the death toll, response and continuation of the epidemic. How easily the good intentions of the international community can go awry. I remember that in the 80's Haiti was often thought to be a potential source for the spread of the HIV virus because of its prevalence among Haitian men. (My sister, a Nurse at the time often cited the 3H risk factor for blood donors and sexual partners: Homosexuals, Hemophiliacs, Haitians.) This was later disproven but not before wreaking havoc with the fledgling tourism industry. Now they are victims again, and once again the source is external. And once again they suffer almost stoically.

Its is a few days later and Jacob, a hard worker is getting almost nothing done. I ask if he needs an invitation to do some work today. He smiles weakly and says he feels 'faible' weak, and sick in the stomach., he wants to leave to go to the hospital in Fond Parisienne, a few hundred kilometers towards the border crossing at Malpasse. I give him some funds to get there, Two others had the same complaints of stomach pains, cramping and diarhea. I ask if they think it may be cholera, but they assure me they are using plenty of soap and no one else in the village has been sick with cholera.

We have had three days of pretty heavy rains and as we work ankle deep in mud to channel surplus water, I see that the groundwater here is very high. Shoes are useless and the mud, while slippery, feels like the clay slip I have used in pottery classes, silky and thick. It is almost cool working barefoot in it. The channel that was dug to contain the water supply conduit from the well source is also filled to the brim and is draining into our fields. I assume from runoff although since the sole tap at its end has no shut off and continually drains into the same trench. In the area of the center of the town it is about three feet wide and at least fifty yards long, containing thousands of gallons. To my great relief, there are small minnow like fish swimming in it – wonderful at controlling mosquito larvae which could cause even more problems since Malaria and Dengue Fever are also endemic here. While I make the assumption that this is groundwater accumulation and will subside soon. I ask if this has happened in the past?

Although I cannot understand their Creole completely, from the ensuing argument I can tell this has been a source of some contention. After interrupting to ask for calm and for people to allow one person at a time to speak so that I can understand, the problem is clear. The trench was dug because a breach in the conduit was noticed almost a year ago. When water pressure in the filling trench was low, the conduit was unaffected. Now that the water table is high, water pressure in the trench is forcing water into the conduit through the breach, and explains the recent outbreak of stomach and lower intestine symptoms. They shut the water supply off at the source (a well head and mile and a half of conduit supplied to the town by a missionary group, about ten years ago), which terminates in the shower and water supply installation. Thousands of gallons of water in the trench will need to be pumped out of the trench before the pipe can be resealed. They will need a generator, a very high flow rate pump and replacement pipe. There will be seven thousand people without water for several days at best. I cannot solve this problem, for them, because our budget and duties are clearly defined. I attempt to configure some steps to the solution. Tempers are still flaring. I am glad I am witnessing this, because it becomes clearer that the people dont think things are running well. I am also glad they feel comfortable enough with me to let me see this public disagreement.

Although this small enclave of homes has been spared the epidemic of Cholera, on several passes through town I see there are new and separate tents set up at the Cuban Medical Facility nearby where recovering victims lay sweltering a short distance away. Another group of white tents and surgical-masked medical personnel springs up like Holiday lighting, on the road heading for Port Au Prince outside of Croix Des Bouquets. While the election protests rage in the big cities of Port Au Prince and the former colonial capital of Cap Haitienne, Here a small town struggles with the dyfunction of a post-earthquake, helpless national government in the grip of the loss of thousands of its employees, ministries and office buildings. And among the results, a simple thing like water, that the entire world takes for granted everyday, becomes an urgent necessity that this small village of Hatte Cottin cannot ignore.

Best wishes for all of you this holiday season.