Marevie's long road to recovery

Line Wolf Nielsen, currently in Haiti for SOS Children's Villages, gives us the latest news on a very special little girl.

Its been more than two months since Louis Klamroth, a volunteer working with SOS Children's Villages' emergency programme in Haiti, found Marevie. Regular readers of this blog will know that this little girl captivated his heart and that Louis went out of his way to ensure her wellbeing.

I first meet her around two weeks after Louis had her admitted to a local hospital. She is thin and weak, but recognizes the SOS workers that I have come with and reaches out for them in a very touching manner. Since then she has spent most of her time in a hospital bed, getting treatments for severe malnutrition and breathing problems.

Several SOS workers have been visiting her frequently and taking an interest in her wellbeing. When news spread that she has arrived in the SOS Children's Village in Santo, there is a great sense of achievement. This is a day we've been looking forward to. She is, however, not quite ready to be staying with SOS long term just yet.

Marevie still needs special medical attention, and she is here in order to prepare for a trip to a hospital in Les Cayes where they have the necessary equipment to test her lungs. It is a long and arduous trip, but she will be accompanied by the SOS nurse and hopefully make it without too much hardship on the way.

Power on, please!

Line Wolf Nielsen, currently in Haiti for SOS Children's Villages, takes umbrage with shortage.

Ever experienced the shortage of such essentials as water, electricity and fuel, all in the same few days? Add a touch of heightened risk of political instability and public strikes, stir for some time until you reach 32 degrees and high humidity, sprinkle with a bunch of hard-working colleagues all confined to tents and crowded living quarters on the one weekly day off and you have the ingredients to my recent weekend.

Considering the poverty situation here in Haiti our current shortage in the SOS Children's Village in Santo really should not be something to complain about...but we have to ensure that at least one car has enough fuel for hospital runs and other emergency situations. We have promises to keep with almost 90 food distribution points around town, where 12.000 children await a daily meal and SOS food deliveries. Then there is the UN cluster coordination meetings, the airport arrivals and departures and all the other necessary runs around town, all of which require a vehicle.

Needless to say we are now constantly on the lookout for gas stations stocking fuel, and that we have learned to pool trips and wait out other people's meetings etc.

Monday, when a colleague was able to get fuel, it was only after waiting in line at the pumps for hours because he didn't want to risk purchasing it from the street vendors who often mix it with water. We have had one bad experience with diluted fuel, which rendered one crucial generator unusable. And that was with fuel purchased in the Dominican Republic by a reputable vendor. Hrmpf!

Unfortunately a gas shortage in Haiti doesn't just mean fewer cars on the roads. It means that houses, hospitals, schools and businesses can't run their generators to keep their lights on or the equipment running. Since the earthquake, many hospitals in Port-au-Prince are working out of tents using generator-powered equipment. Here, a fuel shortage can have devastating consequences.

As most of the national electricity grid is dependent on fuel and gas for generating power, the shortage also mean less national grid electricity - which in turn increases the demand for fuel-fed generators...and blood pressure for those trying to locate this precious item.

In the SOS Children's Village it means no homework after sunset at 6.30 pm. It also means that office equipment is down, food goes bad in the fridges, and that the water system goes on strike most of the time, as the pumps can't function.

But all is not bleak: a cheerful gathering at the one pump with a moment of constant running supply showed me how even little girls can balance a seriously heavy load on their head and walk off graciously - without spilling a drop.

C'est La Vie

I have a hard time recognizing the little boy sitting on the couch. Is it really Sonson? The SOS mother nods, but I still almost can't believe her. Can this really be the same child?

It's been some time since my last visit to this particular house in the SOS Children's Village and I am looking for a sullen, big-eyed kid with little expression and meager engagement in his surroundings.

What I see instead is a rounded face and playful cheekiness as Sonson imitates the sounds and noises of one of his older SOS brothers.

'Bbbrrrr' says the older boy and shakes his head. 'Bbbrrrr' says Sonson and mirrors the movements with his own little head. It goes on and on and a big smile lights up Sonson's face. The first I have ever seen on him.

Their noses almost touch and their intimate, wordless communication makes me forget that I am there with a team of American journalists, who need to take pictures and interview the SOS mother.

It is truly amazing to witness such change. Sonson was found naked and alone in one of the tent camps in central Port-au-Prince. In fact, he was found in one of the most crowded areas right in front of the crumbled presidential palace, where tens of thousands of people live in makeshift shelters. Still, no one knew his name, his age or where he came from. Someone just began to call him 'C'est la Vie' - such is life.

Two Swedish journalists were alerted to his existence and informed authorities about the boy. A woman was supposedly taking care of him, but was not a relative. Allegedly she used the boy to secure more food aid and occasionally went to hospitals to get medicine for him, which she would then re-sell. During preliminary investigations the woman who 'cared' for him said that the boy was found in a ruined house two days after the quake, and that she was a relative of the deceased mother. Her story changed a few times and a child protection officer told the two journalists that the boy was visibly sick and malnourished and would likely have died, had he stayed with the woman for two more weeks.

The day after his arrival Sonson was sent to a doctor and the malnourishment was confirmed. He was put on a special nutritious diet that would still be gentle enough so as to not cause diarrhea - a very dangerous condition for such a weakened child. It was also estimated that he was around 18 months old.

The two journalists came to see Sonson a few hours after he had been admitted to SOS Children's Villages. They expressed relief seeing him wearing clean clothes and sitting on the arm of his new SOS mother. The non-descript naming of C'est La Vie had been changed to a proper name.

I often found myself stopping by the home just to check on him and I was told he ate and slept well, but in the first few weeks Sonson's arms stayed unbearably thin and he was too weak to crawl and move around on his own. I would see him on the arm of elder children or of his SOS mother, all big eyed and clean, but still quiet and with no smile. It turned out he had also suffered from malaria at some point, so there really was a lot to recover from.

But hey, what a difference a month can make in a small boy's life! Here he was, engaging with his surroundings and clearly fond of the attention from his older brother, who in turn looked more than pleased to be copied so vigorously by little Sonson. Truly heartwarming to see that this little fellow who had lost all and everyone due to the earthquake now was forming new bonds.

If only the Swedish journalists could see him now. I am sure they would be pleased with the fact that they might even have problems recognizing him.

Goudougoudou

Haitians have come up with a new word for 'earthquake'.

Goudougoudou they say, which to me seems to capture both the infernal noise of crumbling buildings and that something is chasing after you. It certainly takes some of the clinical menace away from words like “seismic” and “tectonic plates” and almost turns it into some sort of yeti or some other lumbering rough beast, slouching towards you. I inquire about the word in Camp Obama on the Northern outskirts of Port-au-Prince, where I have gone to visit on an afternoon outing. SOS Children's Villages does not have any activities here, but I have passed the camp in a car enough times to be curious about what life is like here.

Goudougoudou I just say and all five young adults sitting on the wood plank bench laugh out loud of my knowledge of the word - or was it my pronunciation?

It is good to hear laughter here, amongst cardboard covered homes and bare feet children. Camp Obama is an extremely destitute place on the foot of a mountain slope where 4000 people have set up home after the quake. There is little sign of international aid, normally visible on the logo-imprinted tents or in the form of food aid packages littering the ground.
There are no 'child-friendly spaces, no schools, and no clinics with banners from medical aid organizations or water in tanks. A row of five toilets in solid plywood looks too well constructed to not be a donation, but that is all I manage to come across during my walk around. A small truck with canned food arrives and people immediately form a queue. It is not a formalized food distribution with coupons and aid workers managing the process and again, there are no logos. Where the food comes from no one really tells me.

'Life here is terrible' says a 17-year old girl who has taken it upon herself to show me around. Her name is Lovely and that is what she is indeed. Still, at the background of all this destitution, boys are flying kites and men and women say 'bon soir' in a polite manner. For better and worse the place actually has a homely feel.

Homely is a word that does not describe the other camp I saw that afternoon. Placed outside of town in a moon-like landscape of bare mountains, rocks and same-shaped bubble tents, the UN and Haitian authorities have established a new site and begun moving some of the most vulnerable inhabitants from the overcrowded Petionville Golf Club settlement into mid-town. In the first few busloads, many families with children were moved. I am happy to see that they all wear bracelets, because it is a well-established fact that children are often at risk of being separated form their families in the normal chaos that accompanies such events. With no colors, nothing but straight lines and many men in uniform - there to provide security from surrounding mountain side camps such as the Obama Camp inhabitants who have not received much - it is hard to imagine a more child un-friendly environment. Hopefully that will get priority too, as it becomes a more established camp.

I understand the urgency behind the movement. It is raining almost every evening now and as I am writing this, a rhythmic drumming of drops on roof accompany my typing. I try to imagine the conditions in which young Lovely will be tugging herself in. I also think about the 8-month pregnant woman in Camp Obama, whose husband had died during the quake. Her belly button was poking out from a big bump and her camp shelter barely big enough for her to lye fully stretched - not on the bed because there was none - but on the ground.

As sterile as white bubble tents on a row might look, it still keep you dry at night.

Back to School

The calendar said late February and I had been in and out of that particular classroom many times, before I noticed that the date of the earthquake was still written on top of the blackboard. It was partly covered behind a tall pile of kidney beans in boxes.

'12 January' it said in white chalk. In the right hand top corner a small matrix showed the roll call: 2 absent boys and 43 present boys and girls. "I wonder how many of them will return to this school - if ever - and when?" I thought to myself. That answer came Monday when the SOS Hermann Gmeiner School in Santo reopened.

In fact, it has been just a few days since most classrooms contained boxes with food donations and medical supplies.

Following the earthquake and the massive destruction of education facilities, classes were suspended on a national level and the SOS school was used as storage facility and office for the emergency relief programme of SOS Children's Villages.

When I saw the two lines of students filing up in the courtyard shortly before 7am I felt we were passing an important milestone on the road to recovery. School is back in. Life is starting again and is hopefully going to give children and parents a feeling of normality and security.

After observing a minute of silence in memory of those who perished during the earthquake, school principal Myrtil Jean welcomed all returning and new pupils.

"Education is an obligation and a chance you get - so take it and work hard," he advised.

"Class 9 is now in this room, class 6 in that one," he then said and pointed to the very room where I had seen the date of the earthquake on the blackboard. I followed the students inside and was pleased to see the change in date. But I was even more pleased when I saw the roll call with the headcount: no absentees.

"Most cases are not this easy"

Line Wolf Nielsen, currently in Haiti for SOS Children's Villages, experiences the reality of family reunification.

A week after Haiti's devastating earthquake, Phillippe Onecio admitted her youngest child to the SOS Children's Village in Santo. With six children to care for and an absent husband, she thought it best to give up her youngest child.

As the Media Coordinator in the Santo children's village, I often get questions from visiting journalists about this culture of 'giving up your child'. It's a question that requires a non-judgmental answer and to better understand I ask myself what I would do, if I found myself living in a shattered country, with a destroyed home and no hope for a better future. To the journalists I say that a destitute family background is the story for many a child currently in the care of SOS Children's Villages in Haiti and I inform them that if it is at all possible, SOS will see to it that the child can return to live with its family.

But what if the parent truly believes the child is better of with SOS Children's Villages?

A few days ago I spent the day with SOS social worker Rosita Declama and got a first hand impression of all the work that goes before a so-called family reunification.

"Do you want your child to be with you?" Rosita asks Phillippe Onecio as they sit outside the cracked wall of what used to be the family house. "My home feels empty and I would like to have her come live with me again." Despite having given her up at an earlier stage, Phillippe now believes that her 3-year old daughter belongs at home. The mother sells soap in the market, but there are days with few or no customers. Rosita notes that 'the economic situation of the family is un-stable'. But she also writes that she recommends a family reunification 'without any reservations'. The mother wants her daughter home.

"Most cases are not this easy," Rosita tells me - A statement illustrated later in the afternoon, when we talk to a single father of two, a boy of 8 and a girl of 6 years, both currently living in the SOS village. "I love my children but I am not capable of caring well for them at the moment. I have no work and look at where I live," he says and points to the sheets above his head, his only cover. Two grandparents died during the quake and the father is the only relative the children have left.I know that in Haiti poverty, lack of shelter and single parenthood is rampant - and was so also before the quake. Still, to me it does not exactly look like an ideal situation to return the children to.

As we walk back home Rosita explains: "SOS is focusing on children fully orphaned or completely abandoned. If the children still have family or relatives willing to care for them, we can see if we can help. But we are not going to admit children for long-term care in the SOS village if they have a parent left who is capable." I am well aware of this, but I am hit by the urgent need to not only deal with the symptoms but also to look into root causes of child abandonment.

The next day she meets the two children in their SOS home and chats with them. They don't want to leave, the older boy says. "Its not going to be easy, but they will have to return home to their father soon," Rosita sighs. I feel like questioning her on why she thinks it is the right decision, but I cut myself short. I know the answer already. I can hear an echo of myself from when I talk to journalists: "Children really should be with their family and the big task for Haitian authorities and organizations such as SOS Children's Villages is to find ways to support such vulnerable families," I would say. I know the values behind such statements and I can communicate them effectively because I also truly believe it is right. But as with many values and policies, it's good to have a reality check once in a while.

I must not forget to tell that Phillippe did come the day after to take her little girl home. She had even put on a beautiful hat for the occasion. "It is not easy to say goodbye and my daughter looks sad about having to leave - which I can understand," Phillippe tells me as I try to get the girl to smile for the camera.

Once the paper work is done, Rosita walks the two of them to the gates. I note that the girl has not lost trust in her mother and reaches for her hand as they walk out. Then we all wave and I know that this was one case closed as it was supposed to be closed.

Haiti has changed me

Louis Klamroth, in Haiti for SOS Children's Villages, says goodbye to Haiti and looks back on two of the most beautiful, terrible months of his life.

My last "official act" was to request an escort from the UN for one of our food distributions. Last week a mob seized one of our trucks and stole all the rations in it. For a long time, there was no need for escorts, but it looks like we will be distributing our food donations only when there is military personnel protecting us, even though I just can't get used to the thought of it.

Everything is ready. My successor has started her work and for me, the time has come to say goodbye to Haiti. The last two months have been the most beautiful, terrible, and intense thing I have ever experienced in my life. I admit I am exhausted and also ready to leave now. My time here in Haiti has demanded every last bit of energy of me and I look forward to being on my way to Santo Domingo tomorrow.

Many things I have seen here will stay with me for a long time. Haiti has changed me. I have had so many moments of joy here that this blog would exceed its limit were I to recount them all here. Today I took Marevie into my arms once more. To think I may never see her again makes me feel physically ill. The doctors have promised to take very good care of her and to send me an update on how she is doing via email. Leonie, the SOS-nurse, has also promised to be in touch regularly. The children in the SOS Children's Village of Santo have worked their way into my heart, and even though we only ever communicated by using our hands andf feet, I have had the privilege of being taught a lot by them.

Even if it'll be a while before I can process some of my experiences here, I leave with a feeling of accomplishment. We have made an incredible amount of progress (although it does feel a bit like we've barely scratched the surface of the problem); and the team of SOS co-workers is well under way to securing a safe, enduring and prosperous future for many of Haiti's children. I am proud to have been a part of this team and thank all those who remain on it, not just the people working for SOS Children's Villages here in Haiti, but also those all over the world; for making it possible for us to return to the children that most valuable posession so many of them had almost lost: their childhood.