One of my cast of returning Haitian characters is the lovely and talented David Darg. David and I have survived floods and disease together in far-flung parts of Haiti. I spoke with David and asked him to send us a list of how he and his team were preparing for Hurricane Tomas. David is a man who carries a heavy responsibility on a good day in Haiti. I can’t image the pressure the guy must be feeling in the face of what is heading his way.
This is the list that David Darg provided:
Water: One truck mounted WMI unit that can be immediately driven to hardest hit areas and start pumping clean water to affected communities. (Unit will remain mounted on the truck.)
Water: Two additional WMI units that can be set up for emergency water filtration if needed.
Water: Round-the-clock production of liquid chlorine for potential water purification.
Emergency Kits for 200 families: These kits consist of sheet metal (six pieces), 2×4 planks (four six-foot planks), a plastic tarpaulin, a hammer, sheet metal nails, five gallons of disinfectant liquid (manufactured by OB in Port-au-Prince), a LifeSaver jerrycan and ready-to-eat meals. Our team has been busy assembling these kits and loading them into our green box truck so we are ready to deploy quickly.
Debris Removal: We have two chainsaws ready to help clear roads and remove obstructive debris.
Boat access: We have a seventeen-foot aluminum boat available in case of communities cut off by flooding. The boat can be used to transport essential supplies and medical teams if needed.
Medical partnership: We are poised to respond in conjunction with medical teams from the St. Luc hospital.
The boy’s name is Romie Patel. He is an American from Houston, Texas. Romie’s family took a vacation from running their hotel and brought Romie home to see his native India.
The small boy and myself had an instant connection. Romie and I held hands and walked, together, through many parts of India. The Patels, along with my wife and I, found ourselves traveling through Rajasthan on the same train. That was in 1998. Romie was four years old. Probably driving a car somewhere in Houston, Romie is now sixteen. What I wouldn’t give to see his huge, beautiful eyes once more.
CNN producer note
JOHNNYCOLT said he was most interested in voting for a tax to put trauma centers throughout the state.
- hhanks, CNN iReport producer
In between shooting a story about people voting, I voted.
COULD THE UN BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CHOLERA OUTBREAK?
While visiting a cholera clinic in Carrefour, Haiti, I heard what sounded like a wild rumor: the UN were responsible for the cholera outbreak in Haiti? As I traveled across Haiti hunting cholera, I continued to run into this rumor. The story was coming from increasingly credible sources. It was when speaking with a well respected and connected member of an NGO that I realized this rumor just might have some legs to stand on. I went to the UN compound on a mission and ended up with nothing except lunch.
Claire-Lise Chaignat said that, until this month, there had not been a diagnosed case of cholera in Haiti as far back as records go. She is the head of the Global Task Force on Cholera Control at the World Health Organization. Haiti is a land with no history of cholera. Haiti’s Minister of Health, Doctor Larsen, was quoted as saying, ”I don’t know where it came from!”
Some Haitians are beginning to blame the Nepalese. Cholera is endemic in Nepal and there have been outbreaks over the summer. New Nepalese peacekeepers have been rotating in as late as October 9th. Waste from the Nepalese contingent’s camp is said to be overflowing and dumping into the water table in such a way that it has infected a tributary to the great Artibonite River.
What I have seen is cholera killing people on the rivers of the Artibonite. I have watched as children and parents, alike, drink, bath and wash clothes all from the same river water source. People of villages like Grande Saline, who have been cut off by flooding, have no choice but to turn to the toxic river for their water. There has to be a source for the cholera and chances are that source is imported.
To get a better feel for what these people are experiencing, I asked a local man in Grande Saline to take me down the river in his small, handmade boat. Gondola-style, we floated on the slow-moving waterway. Animals waded in the brown waters right next to their owners. Children dipped their hands and drank water straight from the trash-covered shores. In the distance, women walking parallel to the river carried bundles of sticks on their well-trained heads. The entire river smelled like hell. Whatever the source, these Haitians have very little chance of defending themselves against cholera.
iReport —
Behind the scenes view of what life can sometimes be like for a solo journalist working in a humanitarian disaster zone. Comedy can sometimes be found in the strangest places.
The Haitian village of Grande Saline has been hit hard by a cholera outbreak. Flooding has cut the village off from surrounding communities. The only way in was through a UN helicopter. While the community was receiving its very first humanitarian aid in the form of a machine that will produce clean water, the children were so excited to see me and my cameras that it became impossible for me to report.
Cholera is as scary as Hell. The victim gets so sick, so fast, that they have very little time to realize their situation. Fluids involuntarily flow from all orifices of the body. The loss of so much, so fast, sends the body’s vital systems into collapse.
When I stepped through the large metal gate of St. Marc Hospital, I realized that I have no idea how to photograph this situation. All that was running through my mind was: “How do I do this without making the cholera victims and their families feel like they are being exploited.” There is no privacy for the ill at St. Marc. The disease is vicious. It not only takes lives–it takes a person’s dignity with it.
Sick people of all ages are lying everywhere. Grown men and women are wearing diapers. Makeshift beds cover every square inch of walkways, courtyards and hallways. The victims of cholera are completely exposed by this environment and far too ill to be able to defend themselves from prying journalists and their nonstop camera shutters. I watch another photojournalist clicking away. He is shooting a person whose eyes are rolling back in their skull-like head. The subject has no idea he is being photographed and no family at the hospital to support him. This scene unnerves me. I walk the grounds and I just can’t bring myself to lift my camera. I pass a truck delivering food. I notice men in masks and rubber gloves carrying a coffin out of the hospital’s back gate. As the coffin fades from view around the corner, two photographers go running by to get their money shots. I want to throw my camera in the garbage. If that is who you have to be, then I guess I may never be any good as a journalist.
I have a seat next to a man who is wearing big yellow gloves while eating chicken and rice. The man’s surgical mask is pulled under his chin. Shoveling greasy food into his mouth, he squats in the driveway–finishing his lunch. I try to relax and get my head around this environment. All I can smell is feces.
The question “what would James Nachtwey do?” floats to the top of my mind. I, like many other people, find the photography of the award winning godfather of photojournalism, James Nachtwey, to be life changing. In my mind, I replay some of my favorite Nachtwey quotes to bolster my spirit. I will never be a Nachtwey. But, I can–and must–be my best self. An authentic self.
I decide on the spot. The only way to do this right is to follow my own inner code. If a person cannot shake my hand, they are not in a position for me to make a personal connection and, thereby, off limits to my camera. As far as the children lining the hospital’s floors, if their parents aren’t there to give me permission to communicate and photograph their kids, then shots will not be taken. Watching the hospital’s crew cleaning the floor while wearing surgical masks and gloves makes me think the handshake idea is dicey. I watch a doctor–without any protective gear–working feverishly to help people. I am inspired by this man’s ability to connect with his patients and yet function in an “all business” mode. I take a deep breath and figure it like this: What is the worst thing that can happen? I am a white guy. I have access to healthcare inside Haiti that even Haitians do not have. The least I can do for the sick is to get in the trench.
The first cholera victim I meet is stunned that I want to shake his hand. A man alone and without family seems pleased to have my company even though we do not speak the same language. His big watery eyes hold mine until he involuntarily urinates into a Styrofoam food container that is being used as a makeshift bedpan. I say goodbye and hit the hand washing station.
The following photos will not win any awards. But, I can tell you that I now know every person’s story that fills these frames.
1 – The sign on the front gate of St. Marc – vomiting and diarrhea only.
2 – A child in the late stages of cholera. His mother is nowhere to be found. Her sister is watching the child and explains that the boy fell ill last night. It is amazing how fast cholera goes to work on its victims.
3 – I watched the child scream in pain while being held down so doctors could put an IV into the child’s head.
4 – The smell of this room is overpowering. People are lying on makeshift mats in various stages of illness. Victims have lost all control. Urine, vomit and diarrhea are a constant problem for hospital staff. Family members are filling any extra space, tending to their seriously ill loved ones.
5 – Anything and everything can be transformed into a stand to hold an IV bag.
6 – A hopeless feeling fills the eyes of most parents I met. Hospital staff work around the clock. Courage and fear are bedfellows at St. Marc hospital.
CNN producer note
JOHNNYCOLT was at St. Marc Hospital on Oct. 30, where patients were seeking treatment for cholera. He says many of the people have died but doctors and nurses are tirelessly working. ‘The hardest thing to get your head around is how a person can show the first symptoms of the illness and four hours later be so ill they are in danger of dying,’ he said.
- zdan, CNN iReport producer
iReport —
October 30th, 2010, ST. MARC, HAITI.
1 – Flies land on this baby’s head. Diapers are changed over and over while fluids leave the small child’s body. The mother says that the little girl is doing okay now that an IV has been given.
2 – This twelve-year-old girl became sick only the night before. According to her father, she was almost dead by morning. The IVs were started just in time and she is well on her way to recovery.
3 – This fourteen-year-old boy is throwing up his guts, literally. He moans in pain. For him there is no IV or bed–just his mother to care for him. The temperature in the tent is sweltering. The boy’s mother encourages me to shoot photos of her sick son. All she can do, at the moment, is pour water over her son’s head to help keep him cool.
4 & 5 – Nurses spend most of their time inserting needles into the sick. IVs save lives.
6 – This grandmother shares her relief by flashing me a small smile. Although I do not speak her language, her attitude tells me that this child is improving.
7 – The fourteen-year-old boy’s mother has beautiful features. Features that have hardened with worry. Reaching for clean water to try to keep her son cool and hydrated is all that she can do.
Haiti is the pugilist that just keeps standing up no matter how much canvass he tastes. Haiti is the opponent who gives you a grin after your very best punch. A fighter whose lungs are always strong and has knees that never go weak.
Unfortunately, Haiti seems to have a glass jaw, a crooked manager and the cut man fails to do his job. The country staggers around in the international ring, drawing mixed and questionable attention. As the odds turn against the fighter and it becomes increasingly clear that money is to be made, the cheap seats will have already sold out. If endurance under hardship were a sport, then Haiti would currently be in its title fight. Only the spectacle of extreme suffering through bloodshed and death will continue to grab the desensitized audience’s attention. How does Haiti continue to throw punches? Character, that is how.
The country is no stranger to struggle. Haiti was born a fighter. What happens when the tiger is released after life in the cage? When the master lets go of the leash and the beast bites the owner? Haiti, that’s what happens. Like so many stories in history, lessons never seem to be learned.
From the ground up, young Haitians learn the science of struggle. The toughness I have come across in the Haitians I have gotten to know is met with equal parts beatitude. From the most defiant youth gang members of Cité Soleil to hardened grandmothers in the streets of Port-au-Prince, every smile I cast is cast back even brighter and wider.
iReport —
I went back into the Palace Camp to find my friend, Yves. I wanted to check on him and his family to find out how their life in the camp was going. Having spent time with Yves and his family, I was eager to hear their thoughts about the current state of affairs in Port-au-Prince.
