New Friends

I will miss my new Haitian friends as well as those that I worked with side by side in the medical clinics.

Sister Mary I

Matthew 25 is run by this wonderful and wise lady who keeps everything on track.  She is responsible for housing as many as 25 to 30 people at once.  She sees that everyone gets fed breakfast and dinner, has a clean place to sleep and get a bath, and get from and to the airport on time.  In addition, she along with help from husband and wife team Patrick and Vivian, coordinates translators for the medical teams, does the accounting and provides whatever assistance they can to the many needs in the community.  On top of all that, she provides some of the coldest beer on the island.  If I needed a place or business run, I would look to Sister Mary I.

Sister Mary II

She is called II because Sister Mary I was at the Matthew House first.  Originally from Canada, she has been in Haiti for quite a long time.  She stands about 5’ tall and won’t tell her age but 75 may be the new 35.  Sister Mary II sings and plays the guitar and her favorite song is “House of the Rising Sun”.  I had never heard a nun sing that song before coming to Haiti.  Just another little surprise, I don’t know why but she seemed to especially enjoy the line – “Mother tell baby sister not to do what I have done”.  I really like Sister Mary II – the Singing Nun.

Heberle – pronounced Airbell (Hairball if you’re Southern)

Heberle is one of the most interesting and impressive young men I met.  We spent almost every day with him as he served as our driver, medical interpreter and friend.  He is one of the reasons that there is hope for Haiti.  Born, raised and educated in his own county, he speaks French, Creole, English and Arabic.  He works for the U.N. when he is not assisting medical teams and is attached to the Jordanian Embassy in Haiti.  He has a wife and two small children and just built a new home.  He makes a good living by Haitian standards by supplementing his U.N. salary with income that he earns by interpreting for medical teams that come through Port-Au-Prince.  He uses his vacation days in order to be able to do both.

Heberle is smart, honest, conscientious, and dependable, qualities in demand anywhere, but especially in Haiti.  I am looking into the possibility of developing a small import-export venture with him that might benefit him and his family as well as a Haitian Orphanage I have learned about.

Patrick

Patrick and Herberle are childhood friends and godfathers to each other’s children.  It is hard to talk about one without talking about the other.  They are both leaders and young men like these are important to Haiti’s future.

Patrick spends about half his time in the states working on his nursing degree and the other half in Port-Au-Prince supporting his family.  He, like Herberle, is a community leader and organizer.  He was the “go to guy” in his community after the earthquake.  Because his home was uninhabitable, he and his family had to live in a tent like everyone else in his community.  They are now back in their home but his tent is still up and he invited us for a tour.  It did not take very long.  The main problems he said were the stifling heat and the mud floor when it rained, which during the rainy season was frequent.

Patrick is Mr. Personality, never meeting a stranger, and funny.  While visiting his home, we noticed two very fat chickens in his courtyard and asked if they were pets.  He said “yes, and they have names, lunch and dinner”.

Patrick supports himself with interpreting jobs that he gets through the Matthew House, a personal sponsor that inspired him to become a nurse, and whatever else he can find to make ends meet.  It will probably take him several more years to complete his nursing degree due to his family responsibility and the way the Visa system works.

Both Patrick and Herberle are sustained and made better by their Catholic faith.  They speak of it and act it out.  They attribute much of their success to the help and support from the Matthew House and the Twinning Organization that supports it.

Nurse Lynn

Not to be confused with Nurse Ratchet in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (well maybe a little).  Lynn is one of my favorite characters of the trip.  Moving from Ohio to Nashville at the age of six, she has become mostly southernized.  She is charming, bright, witty and sweet, not to mention gracious, generous, and all the other things that S.B.’s (Southern Belles) are good at, except for one thing.  You know after meeting her in two minutes, she don’t take no _____ from nobody and you’re not going to fool her with no _____.  But, she has a very nice S.B. way of letting you know that.

Lynn is the one who inspired Patrick to become a nurse.  From what I could pull out of her, she personally funds his tuition.  She had come to Haiti for years working with Dr. Don and others providing medical assistance to thousands of Haitians while she and her husband have raised three sons.  She would not need to do anything else to be a hero to most of us.  But then she goes and does this orphanage thing.  She has established an orphanage in a small placed called Jérémie, about 150 miles from Port-Au-Prince.  She somehow feeds, clothes, and schools 50 kids on $25,000.00 per year.  Most of us in the U.S. spend more than that on one kid in a year.  She also pays for this out of her own pocket.

I call her Saint Lynn.  Her orphanage has no name, no website, it does not have 501 C status (I will be talking to my lawyer friends about that) and obviously some financial help is needed.  In order to set up the orphanage as a 501C it will have to have a name.  Lynn and I are kind of liking, Melissa and Dylan’s Gift.

The Lafonts

Joyce (Dr. Don’s wife)

Joyce and I dispensed over 1500 medications during the time we worked together at the clinics in Port-Au-Prince.  It was hot, humid, cramped quarters, and we stood for most of the entire time.  The work and living conditions are even more demanding when she goes with Don to their clinic at the other end of the island.  Having been married to a successful doctor for almost 50 years, Joyce has known the finer things in life.  Yet, in the five days working together side by side, she never once complained about the heat, the working conditions or the sparse living quarters.  Her frequent laughter kept the moral high in our on little make shift clinics.

Although she does not have a formal degree in pharmacy, she probably knows as much or more as most degreed pharmacists, especially about medicines needed to treat tropical illnesses.  She loves working along side Dr. Don and she loves the people of Haiti.  I call her Saint Joyce.

Dr. Don

He is as passionate as one can be about this work.  Although his parish back in Jackson, Tennessee helps fund these medical trips, Don spends much of his own money for medicine and other costs associated with these trips.  He was one of the few that was able to figure out a way to get into the country to administer medical help the week after the earthquake.

He has been the inspiration for those like Nurse Lynn and many others in the medical field to come to Haiti to help.  He was the inspiration for my coming.  Don is very modest about what he does so I won’t make any reference to Sainthood.  He would not like that.  He is not even that comfortable with Dr. Lafont or Dr. Don.  He just likes to be called Don.