Mending bodies, building a legacy
Utahns leave their hearts — and a new clinic — in Haiti
This medical clinic has been set up in a building with two small rooms; the courtyard is jammed with people.
Francois Mezilien, founder of the Handicaps' Association of Carrefour, has already given 145 numbered stubs to people waiting in the sun-baked courtyard. Half will be seen by a team of Utahns from Healing Hands for Haiti today; the rest will go to the Healing Hands clinic on Friday, when it opens for the first time.
Mezilien was born with no hands and only one leg, then abandoned by his parents. A priest took him in, believed in him and taught him to believe. Now he's trying to teach others, running a food program, a vocational training program, an occasional medical clinic and a school.
He showed up at the Healing Hands clinic as the crew was cleaning and scraping. He'd come to ask the Utah team to help his people.
"Mostly, we try to teach people not to think of themselves as disabled," he said.
Teaching the rest of the country will be harder still. Haiti has never embraced its disabled, either with government policy or simple social kindness.
The heat and closeness are almost unbearable — 116 degrees, 90 percent humidity and no electricity. Some examinations will take place by flashlight. Although Haitian volunteers wave cardboardlike fans, by day's end the team will be so sweat-soaked that goats roaming the street will shun them.
The first man through the door has a lump on the back of his neck, big as a cantaloupe. It's like silly putty.
As Dr. Jeff Randle diagnoses a fatty tumor, the team members gawk. But though it's hard for the man to turn his head, Randle assures him the tumor is relatively harmless and that removing it could introduce an infection, given the unsanitary conditions. If he had $25, Food for the Poor could remove it in their hospital. It might as well be $1 million. If he gets sick, jaundiced or really tired, he should worry. Otherwise, he's better off living with it. The man smiles and nods thanks as he puts on his shirt.
Reubenson, 13, doesn't seem to notice that he's wearing a girl's shirt, complete with pink ribbons. His mother says her son, very small for his age, woke up one day with a stiff neck and shoulders. He can't look up. His knees ache all the time. But he didn't have a fever.
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