This beautiful piece was submitted by Moonfrye member Jennifer McKelvey

I read a quote just recently that hit home for me: “Haiti was home to one of the worst disasters of our time. Then the earthquake hit." When the news of the earthquake in Haiti hit the internet and news stations, my heart sank. Haiti has a special place in my heart. From 2000-2004, my husband and I were able to go on several medical mission trips to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti. We went with Partners In Health, an amazing organization that works to prevent social injustice and provides amazing medical care to the most remote parts of the world. In preparation for my first trip to Haiti, I read up on the basics of the country. Nothing could have prepared me for the extreme poverty and dire living conditions that I saw in person. I think most Americans are oblivious to the suffering that goes on all over the world. I don’t think it’s intentional, but when it’s not staring you in the face, it’s easy to forget.

We left the bustling Miami International Airport, and an hour and a half later, landed at Port-Au-Prince airport. Stepping off the plane was like walking into an oven. The air was so hot that you immediately began to sweat. Being from the South, I am very used to heat and humidity, but not like what I felt in Haiti. Locals gathered our bags and boxes of medical supplies for us, and we set off by caravan for the town of Cange, a small, remote village in the central plateau of Haiti. The drive through Port-Au-Prince was colorful and interesting. The town was bustling with activity. Brightly painted Tap-Tap’s picked people up and drove them across the city, school children were dressed in uniforms walking through town, mopeds zipped passed, small businesses were open, street side markets were at ever corner selling fruits and mud cakes. Yes, you read that right! The price of food in Haiti had gone sky high. Most Haitians live on less than a dollar a day. Mud cakes are cheap and ease hunger pangs. There is no nutritional value to them, and they have become a staple for people who cannot afford rice and fruit.

As we made our way up the mountain to Cange, we passed small villages with huts made of mud or banana leaves, children frolicked around, their bellies huge, and hair discolored from malnutrition. Like many of you, I have seen the commercials to feed the children. My heart ached seeing it on my TV, but seeing it in person has a feeling that I will never forget. The roads past Port-Au-Prince are not paved and have huge divots in them. Our car broke an axle, so we were forced to stop so the drivers could make the repairs. The local children immediately surrounded us, very curious about the strangers standing before them, but full of smiles and handshakes. We all emptied our backpacks and gave them granola bars, Gatorade, and cinnamon gum. We played games that broke the language barrier and piled back into the car once the repairs were made. We made it Cange in about 3 hours. Cange is like a compound. They have a school, a medical clinic, a TB sanitarium, and an HIV care facility. They have 2 working operating rooms and a recovery room. It certainly is not like the facilities we have here, but it was sufficient to get our work done.

Our room was just beside the children’s ward. Walking through, we saw mothers fanning their babies, the worried looks on their faces were heartbreaking. A lot of the children there were being treated for malnutrition, dysentery, and malaria. Most of the children were lying there lifeless, too weak to cry, too dehydrated to produce tears when they could muster a cry. We dropped our belongings off and walked through the ward, making silly faces to the kids, talking to some of the staff, and feeling numb at the things we were seeing. I wasn’t a mother then, but now that I have my own children, I cannot imagine the way it must feel to watch your child slowly starve to death, or to die from conditions that are preventable in most parts of the world.

The Haitian staff and the residents of Cange treated us like family. We had a general surgeon, a urologist, an OB/GYN, an anesthesiologist (my hubby), a surgical technologist (me), a RN, and a priest with us. We operated for sometimes up to 18 hours a day on a variety of ailments. The patients and family were so grateful for our being there that they would give us handmade gifts as a way of thanking us for helping. I still have a very cool homemade voo doo doll that was given to me by a patient’s family. I’m still waiting on someone to make me mad enough to use it. ☺ We did a few large goiter surgeries, which were life saving in that the goiters had become so large, it was a matter of time before the patients airways were obstructed and breathing would have been impossible. We removed a large tumor from a one year old’s stomach that was depriving him of nutrients and made breathing difficult. We saw him again the next year, much healthier, and as active as any kid his age. I delivered my first baby in Haiti, a girl, whom the mother chose to name after me. About an hour after she was delivered, the doctors sent her and her mother on their way back to their village, which was a days walk away. I often wonder about her. She should be seven by now.

One day that will forever stand in my mind is the day that my husband worked to start an IV on a seven month old who was hours, or at the most, a day away from death. She was severely malnourished, the weight of a newborn, with skin just hanging from her frail bones. She desperately needed IV nourishment, yet the severity of her condition made the task difficult. After several tries, he looked at me and said “I got it”. He had tears in his eyes and immediately started the fluids for this little girl. When we left Cange that trip, we saw her in the children’s ward, moving her arms and legs, smiling, and babbling. That sums up what out trips were for. Her mother clung to my husband for several minutes as we said our goodbyes, speaking in Creole, obviously thanking him.

On our down time, we would hike to the top of the mountain and marvel at the beauty of the Haitain countryside. My favorite thing was to go shoot some hoops with a few of the local boys, aged 7-12, who were beyond skilled in the sport. After they beat me in basketball (which was pretty much every time), they would always give me a hug and a high five.

Each time we left Cange to return home, it was a sad occasion. The locals became like family to us. Every return visit was like going home. We were welcomed by the children who would run after our vans, waving and cheering. Our hostess, the late Madame Lafontant, who just recently passed away this month, would make sure we were comfortable and happy, always fussing over us. She was our Haitian mother.

After we began having children, we had to make the difficult decision to stop going to Haiti, as the political situation became worse and our main responsibility was to keep ourselves safe for our children. When the earthquake happened, we received phone calls asking us to come help, but with the uncertainty of more quakes and the unreliability of air travel in and out of Port-Au-Prince, we made the decision to donate money to Partners In Health and offer our thoughts and prayers to all the people of Haiti. Had our children been a little bit older than 3 & 4, we would have gone in a heartbeat. We learned that one of our friends from Port-Au-Prince did not make it and was never found.

We hope to return one day and take our children with us when they are older so they can comprehend the things they will see. We want them to see what life is like outside of their world, to show them that suffering is everywhere, and that above all, to help someone in need is really helping yourself, too. Life’s lessons are disguised in many ways. I learned so much about life on those trips. I tend not to sweat the small stuff, I am grateful that I can get in my car and go buy food to feed my children, I am grateful that if my kids get sick, their doctor is only 20 minutes away. The people of Haiti are beautiful, humble, grateful, and generous. Even without much material things to offer us, they wanted to give anything they could in return for our work. What they don’t know is that they gave us so much more than they could ever know. They gave me a good glimpse into the human spirit, the ability to be thankful for the things you do have, and the beauty of love and appreciation towards your fellow man. They treated us, strangers from another country, like family. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of Haiti. I miss it, and I can’t wait to go back.

-Jennifer McKelvey