Cholera Continues

People in Haiti continue to get Cholera.  There is not the same energy around it as when the illness first arrived. It has been quite a long time since volunteers here who were working in other programs were asked to also help out in the Cholera tents.  Now, buildings have replaced the tents and there is sufficient Haitian staff working there.  In the past several days though I was reminded several times that the problem has not gone away.  Several days this past week, daily liturgy was a funeral mass for victims of cholera.  A couple of the bodies on the chapel floor were quite small (babies or young children.)  

At the end of last week a young child, who I think may have significant disabilities, was brought over to Kay St. Anne.  While being treated for Cholera apparently the child was abandoned.  We do not know his age, only his name.  I think he could be about three or four, since when we stand him up he is about the height of some of our children who are that age, but it is hard to tell.  Since we don't know his age it is hard to get a sense of how delayed or disabled he is.  He is pretty much non verbal, although one day when I was playing with him when he grabbed my telephone, after I said "alo" (hello) many times and held it to his ear he eventually repeated the word clearly.  He does not walk, but does scoot around on the floor a bit.  Someone is trying to find a better placement for this child, where there are lower ratios of children to adults and where staff have received training  in serving children with significant special needs.  The organization I work with has one home at the orphanage in Kenskoft for children with disabilities, but it is full and not likely to have any spaces soon; many of the "children" who were placed there because of the degree of disability are now young adults who continue to reside there as they are not able to live independently.  The organization has some out-patient programs providing services to children who have disabilities as well.  I imagine it is challenging for any family anywhere to care well for a child with a severe disability, but here in Haiti, where there is so much extreme poverty, so few resources, where even non-disabled poor children are not given the right to a free and appropriate education, and subsidies like social security disability are non existent, it is a far greater challenge.  A family who abandons such a child may believe that an organization that can run a hospital must have access to resources to care for the child in a way that the family can't. While this Haitian child who likely has significant disabilities who was abandoned in a Cholera camp,  seems to have so much going against him in life; I must say his smile is brighter and more frequent than the smiles of most people I know.           

Today is Mother's Day in Haiti; so, Happy Mother's Day again.  I am also aware that it is Memorial Day weekend in the states, so Happy Memorial Day, too.  I always think of Memorial weekend as the beginning of the summer season.  In Haiti it always feels like summer; the past week or so has felt to me like an August heat wave, although fortunately it is not so very hot here today.  

A month from now, I will be heading home for Erin (my younger sister's) wedding, followed by vacation, provincial chapter and retreat.  I look forward to catching up with family and friends.