Worlds of Misery--September 2019

 

EB 1566--Worlds of Misery--Sept 2019

(Photo by John Carroll–September 9, 2015)

Those of us old enough to remember know right where we were when the World Trade Center towers were hit that morning 18 years ago today.

I was in Haiti. A friend of mine from central Illinois and I were working in a pediatric clinic in Cite Soleil.

Sometime after 10 AM, a nervous appearing Haitian physician quickly walked up to me telling me, “I just heard on the radio that they bombed your White House.”

I am sure I gave him a puzzled look because I had no idea what he was talking about. A few minutes later, in the clinic pharmacy, a Polish Catholic Sister told us that two airplanes had struck the World Trade Center in New York City.

My friend and I were definitely confused at that point, but we hurried back to our patients and kept working.

After clinic ended that morning, we got on the Sister’s van which transported us out of Soleil each day and back to where we were staying in the Delmas area of Port-au-Prince.

I remember being in the van and looking out the window at the pedestrians in the street near the clinic. A Soleil lady was walking by with her face a gleaming black covered with sweat. She was carrying a heavy bucket on her head as she stared straight ahead.

I thought right then that whatever happened in New York that morning was not going to affect this lady’s day at all. She seemed detached to me…so far away from our world in the United States, that whatever calamitous thing happened at home, it would not affect her day in the least. Our world of misery would not touch her world of misery.

Eighteen years ago today our world changed in so many ways. But for the lady in Soleil, her world stayed almost the same. As the years droned on, food and water continued to be hard for her to find. And the Soleil gangs kept kidnapping and the UN soldiers kept shooting.

And today on September 11, 2019, instead of her own kids, she carries her grandkids to clinic for stupid illnesses of the slum.

 

John A. Carroll, MD

www.haitianhearts.org

5 thoughts on “Worlds of Misery”

1. David Volk

2. says:

3. September 11, 2019 at 8:59 pm Edit
   Very right, John. I bet that woman heard about our 911, though, in contrast to most Americans remaining utterly ignorant of her plight of abject poverty shared with so many in this world.
   And she may indeed still be alive. The odds of Haitian babies surviving are not that great, but once age five, poor people throughout the world show an amazing ability to withstand insults to their wellbeing such as lack of clean water and good food, and lack of healthcare.
   God bless the poor. Thank you, John.
   Reply

1. John Carroll, MD

2. says:

September 11, 2019 at 9:02 pm Edit
Thank you, David.