September 11, 2015–Fourteen Years Later

Photo by John Carroll

Fourteen years ago today I was working clinic in Cite Soleil when a Haitian doctor approached me. He was sweaty and nervous and he said, “They just bombed your White House.”

I stared at him and had no idea what he was talking about.

I went into our little pharmacy and I saw Ser Lila, a Polish Sister of the Daughters of Charity, with her ear to a small radio. She looked concerned and told me that a couple of buildings were bombed in New York City. 

I had no idea what was going on. 

I was with a good friend of mine, Rich Bertschie, and both of us knew something bad had happened somewhere out east in the United States but we had no idea what.

After clinic was over Rich and I piled in the back of a van and headed out of Soleil. A sweaty market woman walked by us with a huge load of charcoal on her head. She was staring straight ahead.  I knew she did not know what had just happened in the States and that it would never affect her day-to-day life in the slum no matter how catastrophic it was. Her whole life was catastrophic.  

On the way back to the guesthouse Rich and I just looked at each other and wondered. I remember that we discussed that neither of us would ever forget this day in Soleil. Not knowing what just happened in the States would seal this moment  in our minds forever.

John A. Carroll, MD

www.haitianhearts.org