Yolanda and the Trujillo Massacre--January 2016

 

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Mary (Photo by John Carroll–January 29, 2016)

Today at Camp Cadot #1 I spoke with Yolanda’s mother again. Her name is Mary and she is 49 years old. Mary and her husband and seven of their ten kids live in Park Cadot #1.

They had lived in the Dominican Republic for 29 years. Half of their kids were born there and the other half were born in Thiotte, Haiti. They all speak Spanish and Creole.

Mary’s husband worked hard in the Dominican fields and tended cattle. On a  good day he would make equivalent to three dollars US. They lived in a little house out in the country and worked for the owner of the farm (el patron).

However, last year they heard that Haitians without proper papers were no longer wanted in the Dominican. And none of the family legal documents. Mary told me that if they did not go back to Haiti, they were told there would be another genocidal massacre like the one cared out against the Haitian border people by President Rafael Trujillo in 1937. So Mary, her husband, Yolanda, and most of her other kids left the Dominican and came here in June, 2015.

I asked Mary where she would like to live. At first she said “…anywhere because it is all the same.” By that she meant that the interior of Haiti had nothing to offer her family either –except more grief. She said she was most comfortable on the border, because this is “what I am used to.”

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Yolanda has had a swollen abdomen off and on since she was 15 days old. I believe she has Hirschprung Disease. She was operated earlier this year in Santo Domingo when she had a bowel obstruction. She was able to leave the Camp for this medical emergency. And her mother did not need to pay anything for her care in the public hospital in the Dominican capital.

Mary has been sick lately with dizziness and pain everywhere with what I call Haitian Woman Total Body Failure Syndrome (HWTBFS). But she feels better now and states she can travel back to Port-au-Prince with Yolanda. They will stay with a friend of ours in Port-au-prince, Karen Bultje. Karen will provide food and lodging for them and also transport Mary and Yolanda to the new hospital in Mirebalais where Yolanda is scheduled to have her colostomy reconnected.

John A. Carroll, MD

www.haitianhearts.org