Missionary Doctor's perspective "Now the real dying starts"

This was written by my new doctor friend from Kenya. He came all the way from Africa to volunteer.  He's really from Philadelphia, but he and his wife are missionarys in Kenya right now.  It paints a pretty good picture of at least one of my many experiences while in Haiti. Its a little choppy, but you will get the picture. Rob Picard, do you agree?

Alan
 

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Now the real dying starts.  From the red cage we sit in, the ten of us can see there will be some real dying soon.  We ride by in the caged back of a pick up truck.  The cage serves several purposes.  One is to keep us from falling out and the other to keep people from reaching in and getting our goodies (clean water and snack food).  It also interferes with getting good pictures of these same desperate people.  It fails to keep out the dust.  Welcome to Haiti.  Take good pictures.

To define a good picture is easy.  A good pictures will relate how heavy the death toll will be after the 230,000 have been buried.  That was the estimated death toll as of my arrival.  World Health Organization expects that once the rains start, the clean water runs out, the septic systems overflow and the tents fall down into the mud, the real dying will start. Take good pictures.  Some of these people won’t be here.

Who will die?  The good pictures tell the story.  Many of them will be those we see in the ‘one item only’ line.  You know the kind of line we complain about when someone has the audacity to get in the express line with five items.  Fortunately, everyone is in the one item only line as it is the only kind of line in town.
This line wraps around the corners of the communities we pass.  Only women and young children are in line.  The men have been kept away by the soldiers.  That is because many of the men will fight for the food and then sell it instead of feeding their families.  One item only is what the women carry away.  They will carry on their heads, a 40 pound bag of meal, or rice, or maybe beans.  It is rationed out by uniformed troops, men and women from many nations, with various complexions.

One item only is all they are allowed.  There is no hurry to get to the cash register, but there is a hurry to get into the next line of one item only.  That one will have water.  We push on.  We have enough pictures.
We arrived at our clinic site just about 3 hours after our departure from Port Au Prince.  The crowds had gathered long before and the doctors and nurses who were just completing their stay were glad to see us arrive.  They were exhausted, emotionally and physically.  We gave them relief.

It is hard to talk to anyone about the pain in their chest from the piece of cement that hit them, when there is also a pain in their heart from knowing their daughters were killed by those same pieces of cement.
You get only one item.  Now the real dying starts.